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US President Barack Obama will try to defuse the first race controversy of his term Thursday by sharing a beer with the other two main actors in the drama on the back lawn of the White House, officials said Tuesday. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the gathering of Obama, Boston policeman James Crowley and black scholar Henry Louis Gates would take place around 6:00 pm (2200 GMT). "Weather permitting they'll probably sit at the picnic table, behind the Oval Office" and close to a swingset installed for Obama's two daughters, Gibbs said. Obama invited Crowley and Gates to the White House...

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Molly Riley GIBBS: About an ongoing discussion racial issues in this country, I think because of who he is as president and because its obvious these issues are still very raw in our society, I think he believes that he can help bring these type of teachable moments to the forefront, allow our dialogue to take over and communicate better with each other and make society a little bit better because of it. The tape of the 911 call was released. Something I'm sure President Obama...

In 1990 I served the federal court here in South Florida as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the obscenity trial that determined Miami rap group 2 Live Crew’s album As Nasty As They Wanna Be was obscene and thus not protected by the First Amendment. The verdict -- the first in world history that a sound recording was obscene -- was handed down by Jose A. Gonzalez, Jr., a liberal judge appointed by President Carter and who was hailed for his civil rights record by the ACLU and the rap group’s lawyer when the case was assigned to...

"I hate to admit it, but I have reached a stage in my life that if I am walking down a dark street late at night and I see that the person behind me is white, I subconsciously feel relieved." -- Reverend Jesse Jackson Slavery and racism have been like a soiled garment that America has diligently and at great expense tried to wipe clean. President Obama acknowledged at his news conference last week that America has made "great progress" in the direction of racial reconciliation and he is living proof of that. Having acknowledged these truths, what should be...

We received a comment the other day from a reader who thought the only mistake U.S. President Barack Obama made during his press conference last week -- when he was asked about the arrest of his friend, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (whom the President referred to as “my friend, Skip Gates”) – was a lack of “calibration” in stating what he really thought. …Setting aside the fact of the statements of both the lone Hispanic police officer on the scene and also the statements of an African-American police sergeant on the scene, both of whom back Sergeant Crowley’s...

I’ve been travelling and so have only just been catching up with the Obama race row over the altercation between Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge, Mass. police. Strikes me this is no storm in a teacup. Look at the Fox News clip that Tim Montgomerie highlights here for some extremely sharp comments indeed, particularly by Charles Krauthammer. Even after Obama started rowing back, noted Juan Williams of NPR, he was still getting the facts wrong, claiming that Sgt Crowley had led Gates out of his house whereas this was ‘just not true’. This affair is toxic because it touches...

Now that’s it been announced that Pres. Obama will get together Thursday with Sgt. James Crowley and Prof. H.L. Gates for the proverbial beer, PBO’s spin doctors are surely feverishly at work. The White House must be looking at the event as the last best chance to salvage something from the president’s gaffe. Not only did PBO’s assertion that the police acted “stupidly” kill whatever momentum health care reform might have had, it tarnished Obama’s image as a post-racial healer. So surely the likes of Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs are busily orchestrating the theatrics and optics of...

Sunday, professor Louis Henry Gates retreated from his threat to sue Sgt. James Crowley. Friday, President Obama retreated from his charge that the Cambridge cops "acted stupidly." As Crowley has not budged an inch -- his arrest of Gates was correct, and there will be no apology -- there is no doubt who won this face-off. Game, set, match, Crowley and the Cambridge cops. It is, indeed, as Obama said Friday, a "teachable moment." And those most in need of teaching are the professor, the governor of Massachusetts and President Obama. By charging or suggesting Gates was a victim of...

JERUSALEM – Although the reporter involved denies she coordinated with the White House, speculation abounds over the genesis of the press conference inquiry last week by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, whose question about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. prompted a national race scandal involving President Obama. Several blogs have picked up on unanswered questions surrounding the event and have speculated that the White House may have coordinated the question. "Sweet was prepped, planted and performed on cue," was the title of a piece on The Real Barack Obama blog. "Lynn Sweet has earned her bones as a...

Now we know why the President of the United States is such a good friend of Harvard Professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, the professor (scheduled for a White House beer-fest on Thursday, runs a charity that, until it was caught, mis-reported salaries as research grants. Heck with problems like this he could be a Presidential appointee.

CNN's Don Lemon speaks with several Cambridge police officers who pledge their support for Sgt. Crowley.Source: CNN

The ethically-challenged "ethicist" of the New York Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, who writes The Ethicist column has inserted himself into the Henry Louis Gates situation by urging the Harvard professor to sue in order to "pursue social justice." To see where Mr. Ethicist is coming from, let us start off with his laughable money quote in his current column on the subject of lawsuits: Gates should enjoy a cool one and then file suit, assuming he has legal grounds to do so. We Americans are often mocked for being overly litigious, but we are not nearly litigious enough. In the...

It was the dream of a lifetime come true. Harvard Professor Gates had not only preached racism, he lived it, drank it, was promoted because of it. He had done films, lectures, speeches, books, and TV appearances that were Afro-centered. He defended the dirtiest, cop-hating black rap lyrics as "sung" by 2 Live Crew, who "prophesied" about the injustice such nice people as themselves suffer at the hands of police.From Professor Gate's favorite rap group, the "artists" known as 2 Live Crew:In The DustI'm stereotype so I fit the description nigga has the stigma for pushing or pimpin'Police harrass...

HUMOR. Less than 2 minutes long. More ideas for President Obama on how we can heal race relations in our country. Let the healing begin!

Reporting from Washington -- It started out as a casual suggestion: three guys working out their differences over a beer. But President Obama's offer to play host to the cop and the professor entangled in a debate over racial profiling now carries the imprimatur of high-level diplomacy. White House aides are downplaying expectations that the beer summit that Obama suggested last week will produce a resolution. It's set for Thursday, an administration official confirmed Monday night. Both Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. have agreed to come. That means...

The article is already posted. I am calling attention to the Boston Herald Poll on the RH side of the article. Who's right? Professor Gates - Sgt. Crowley - Take your pick.

Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us. That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially. Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has...

Isn't it great to have a president who says something foolish or impolitic from time to time? Obama's rhetorical goofs usually are different from Joe Biden's momentum-mouth, just as they are different from the empty-headed nonsense of George W. Bush and the bizarre country-club-bar chatter of Bush's father. They are also different from the standard political "gaffe," which, as we know, is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Obama's goofs are generally not a result of speaking the truth. They come from thinking things through incompletely. It turns out that the police officer who arrested Skip Gates was not...

Right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck took 24 hours to consider the storm he sparked by branding President Obama a racist - then said it again. Beck took time out on his nationally syndicated radio show to defend his comments, made in connection with the arrest of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. by a white police officer. The Fox Network star told his listeners: 'I said yesterday on Fox News & Friends that the president is a racist; I think he has race issues. 'Don't know if he hates whites but there is something going on with the...

WASHINGTON – Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama dealt with the racially tinged dispute between a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a well-known black Harvard scholar — with disapproval especially strong among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday. The July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified after Obama last Wednesday said police "acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates, who is a friend of his. The poll by the nonpartisan...