They came,they met,they drank. They did not apologise. The much-anticipated beer summit of President Obama,the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.,and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts took place Thursday night,accompanied by minute-by-minute reporting from the White House press corps,countdown clocks from the cable news networks,and a last-minute addition by the White House in the form of Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr. After 10 days of nonstop coverage of a case that prompted news stories about race,the men sat down for less than an hour at a table across from the Oval Office under a magnolia tree. What you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue, a poised and smooth Sergeant Crowley said in a 15-minute news conference after the session. We didnt spend too much time dwelling on the past,and we decided to look forward. Prof Gates said in an interview,I dont think anybody but Obama would have thought of bringing us together. The two men and their families first encountered each other in the White House library while each group was individually touring the White House. Nobody knew what to do, Professor Gates said. So I walked over,stuck out my hand and said,Its a pleasure to meet you. That broke the awkwardness. By the time the two men began their meeting with Obama,they already reported progress and told the President they had plans to lunch together. I am thankful to Prof Gates and Sergeant Crowley for joining me at the White House this evening for a friendly,thoughtful conversation, Obama said. Even before we sat down for the beer,I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another,which is a testament to them. The addition of Biden was interesting,for a number of reasons. Biden was able to draw on his credibility with blue-collar,labor union America to add balance to the photo op that the White House presented: two black guys,two white guys,sitting around a table.
