Beer-Fueled Diplomacy

For more than a week a debate on racial profiling has raged in American press quarters. Did police mistreat Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the esteemed Harvard professor, because he's black? Clearly, it's unclear.

And so, in a move promoting both racial harmony and drinking, President Obama has invited his pal Gates and the arresting officer to the White House to share in a cold one and discuss.

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.

--via LATimes, on the so-named "Beer Summit"