'Bama's Beer Bash

While Dan Rather laments the state of journalism and begs the president to form a White House Commission to aid the ailing practice, Obama is planning to sit down to a couple of cold ones with the players in the Cambridge Fiasco. As fate would have it, the same press afflicted with the disease of mediocrity is agog over the event, touting it as an historic moment and opining ad nauseam over the significance it will have in race relations.

The irony lies in the fact that the case really has nothing to do with race unless one considers the reluctance of Harvard Professor Gates to surrender his membership to victim hood. He is, after all, a Harvard Professor while many people of other races are not. Somehow the message of oppression loses its luster when delivered from such a lofty perch. Add to that notion the fact that Crowley had no idea what color the potential perpetrators were before arriving and the outrage of Gates becomes pure grandstanding.

Also, there is a third leading actor in this play who will not twist the top off of a Bud Light with the boys tonight. The 911 caller who initiated the entire scenario - Lucia Whalen - has been left off the party list. Notably, she is not wildly screeching about misogyny.

In the meantime, while kids are still fighting overseas and unemployment continues to rise and other, more pressing issues swirl around us, Dan Rather's colleagues engage in their slobbering love affair with all things Obama, breathlessly awaiting the second act in the Gates-Crowley drama like so many adolescent Jonas Brothers fans. They are sure to not be disappointed.

I have no doubt that this little bash this evening will be the most meticulously staged photo-op since a grim-faced, lip-biting President Clinton paused to form a cross out of stones - conveniently placed in his path by staffers - on Normandy Beach on the anniversary of D-Day.

Sphere: Related Content