Beer Summit; Diplomacy at its best

As promised, the President and VP sat down with Gates and Crowley over a beer to talk out the details of the racially charged incident the week before. I'm not naive enough to believe that this was, as the President stated, just a few guys sitting down at the end of the day having beers. Each had their own motives for being there, and politics and image was probably shared by more than one of them. Gates did have a Sam Adams and Crowley a Blue Moon - I believe those are motivation enough to drop by for a beer :)

I'm glad it happened, however. I think it should be the model for solving other problems, especially racially charged ones. Biden had a Buckler, which is non-alcoholic; it's not the social lubricant of the alcohol that is the key, it's the "regular guys having a beer" that seems to be the key ingredient. It seems to infer equality in a normal, non-threatening friendly situation. It's hard to be really angry with a guy who's popped open a beer and with whom you "clink" bottles with.

This is not to suggest that this one conversation solved all the tensions between these men; they talked, they listened and they came away with a different perspective.