Drinking Their Troubles Away.

It's finally here! The moment we've all been waiting for in breathless anticipation!

The beer summit.

For two weeks, America has been enthralled by the epic racial drama that began with a 9-11 call, and ended with the arrest of a prominent black professor who just happened to be buddies with the prez.

Liberals decried the "racially motivated" actions of Jim Crowley, the police officer who put professor Henry Louis Gates in handcuffs. Conservatives pinned the blame on Gates, attempting to portray him as a racialist black-power nutcase.

Obama added fuel to the fire when he asserted that the police acted "stupidly." Later, the president tried to soften his statement. But it was too late -- commentators already had all the fodder they needed to create a delightful storm of made-for-cable-news controversy.

But now, it will all come to an end, as Obama The Uniter descends from his lofty throne to reconcile both sides of the conflict. Tonight, Crowley, Gates, and Obama will gather 'round a picnic table outside the White House, drink beer, and learn a valuable lesson about tolerance.

But there's another lesson that can be learned from the Gates-Crowley affair, and it has nothing to do with race-relations in America. It's a lesson about how the media can turn a meaningless series of unfortunate events into a public issue that everyone needs to care about.

Henry Louis Gates was an intellectual who lost his house key.

Jim Crowley was a police officer responding to a call about a break-in.

Gates was understandably upset that Crowley suspected him of breaking into his own home. He made a scene. Crowley was understandably upset about being chewed out by Gates. He arrested him for disorderly conduct.

Afterwards, Gates was promptly released.

The story was newsworthy, because Gates is a public figure. But it wasn't a story of all-consuming importance. At best, it was an odd story about a semi-famous person in a strange situation. It deserved a short blurb, and nothing more.

But Gates' racial interpretation of the event was too juicy to ignore, and two weeks later, a Rasmussen poll shows that 75% of Americans are still following the story "somewhat closely."

Oh well. Nothing washes away the flavor of legislative gridlock and plummeting approval ratings like knocking back a few cold ones with a cop and a seriously ticked-off academic.