Taxpayers… Obama’s White House Beer Garden!
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WASHINGTON–They came, they quaffed, they left.
And despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s vow to salvage a “teachable moment” from a White House session designed to dampen racial tensions with ice-cold beer, last night’s lesson left the rest of America little the wiser.
Barack Obamas Beer Garden!
Like an Oprah show on mute, only the visuals of the much-anticipated huddle between Obama, the black Harvard scholar and the white Cambridge, Mass., cop who arrested him were made public. Whatever was said around the Rose Garden table remained deeply private.
White House officials struggled to frame the meeting as more than a cozy photo-op while simultaneously dialling down its importance.
“I don’t think the president has outsized expectations that one cold beer at one table here is going to change massively the course of human history,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Obama, who has already acknowledged regret for saying Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in the July 16 takedown of Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, yesterday received poll numbers showing Americans feel the same – separate surveys by Rasmussen and Pew Research Center handed the president poor marks for the manner in which he weighed in on the controversy.
Obama initially sought to downplay the encounter, telling reporters yesterday “this is not a summit” but merely three folks “having a drink at the end of the day” and giving themselves a chance to “listen to each other.”
The goal, he said, was to lower the temperature on an event that has become “so hyped and so symbolic” and allow self-reflection to rise above “anger and hyperbole.”
Later, the White House released a statement in which Obama praised his Massachusetts guests for not only sharing a beer, but for spending some time prior to the drink, one-on-one, listening to each other.
“I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart,” Obama’s statement said. “I am confident that has happened here tonight and I am confident that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”
Sgt. James Crowley, the Cambridge officer at the centre of the storm, played the careful diplomat in a brief post-mortem of the meeting, calling it a “cordial and productive discussion.”
Crowley said he and Gates aired their differences frankly, focusing on moving forward rather than “dwelling on the past.”
He declined to provide detail, other than to say the meeting was not tense, with both men behaving “like two gentlemen, rather than fighting it out in the physical sense or the mental sense.”
Gates released a statement after the event in which he said he hoped the experience will prove to be an “occasion for education, not recrimination.”
He said the burden now lies with him and Crowley to use the opportunity fate has given them to foster public sympathy for the dangers facing police officers and the fears that some people have about racial profiling.
Reporters paraded within 20 metres of the Rose Garden for a brief glimpse found an unexpected fourth guest – U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, a late addition, sipping on a glass of non-alcoholic Buckler beer. Obama downed a Bud Light, while Gates chose a Sam Adams Light and Crowley, a Blue Moon.
And with no other data to go on, the U.S. news networks drained the final drops from the story focusing on the symbolism of the various brands of ale and beer.
“Obviously the White House plan was to take a hard-focus story that the president has stepped into in ways he regretted and create a sort of Oprah Moment – tie a nice bow on it and move on,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television.
“But somehow the beer just hijacked this saga. It morphed from a complicated discussion on the important issue of racial profiling into a Joe Six-Pack affair.”
But Crowley’s remarks suggest he and Gates intend to continue talking, leaving open the possibility of more lessons to come. Any future meeting is likely to take place over “Kool-Aid or iced tea,” Crowley said, as reaching for more beer “will send the wrong message.”
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August 4, 2009 pm31 4:45 pm
no matter how hard he tries, Obama will never be a joe six pack type of dude
“Joe Biden, a late addition, sipping on a glass of non-alcoholic Buckler beer.”
Joe’s nose is so far up in the air; I am worried that he might get a nose bleed
a barbecue with billy carter beer would of been a better idea
profiling is a good thing. yahoo has close my y360 profiling ebook. will try and trafer it to the forum
August 6, 2009 pm31 8:58 pm
FROM A FRIENDS SITE
http://retrochcop.multiply.com/photos/album/525/Lets_Have_a_Beer_and_Talk_About_It_-_Special_Edition#6