Posted on 07/31/2009 9:11:08 AM PDT by Schnucki
The black scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him got together at President Obama's much-anticipated beer summit last night.
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. told how he bumped into police Sgt. Joseph Crowley in the White House library beforehand.
He said: 'We hit it off right from the beginning. When he's not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likable guy.'
After the slightly stagey meeting over cold beers in the Rose Garden, Sgt Crowley made it clear the two had 'agreed to disagree' but vowed to move forward.
It was a gracious conclusion to the first round of an eye-opening dialogue on race that allows Mr Obama to get back to selling his health care plan to sceptical Americans.
But neither they nor the president offered apologies for their roles in the affair.
Obama became embroiled in the debate over whether Crowley was justified in arresting Gates at his Cambridge home when the president said that police had 'acted stupidly.'
He quickly backtracked in the face of police complaints, acknowledged he should have used different language to express his concerns, and invited the two men to join him for a beer.
'I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart,' Obama said after the highly anticipated, 40-minute conversation.
'I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.'
White House officials were content to let Obama's involvement in the incident end right there.
Gates and Crowley said they were eager to get back to work, although both pledged future talks aimed at better understanding.
The prof said he hoped the entire experience would prove to be an 'occasion for education, not recrimination,' adding
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It ought to make one wonder why a black president of a major country would first involve himself in a minor affair and then compound the unseemliness by staging a public display of parties involved in a setting where no manner of conflict would be brooked.
To further refer to the meeting as a dialogue on race is to compare wine making with the ritual of washing feet.
Yeah jello shots !!
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