From jail to ale

When the president first suggested the idea of bringing together Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley who arrested him two weeks ago, many in the White House press corps were skeptical. They laughed when he mentioned it at the White House briefing room.

But on Thursday the two men at the center of the biggest racial controversy of the Obama administration, so far, sat down together in an area outside the Oval Office to meet with President Obama. They were joined by Vice President Biden, bringing to tally to two white men and two black men, as some in the media observed.

But did it settle anything? 

Well, it did bring the two former adversaries together, and it did show the power of the presidency to start a controversy and to mitigate the effects of one.

The Washington Post called it "an extraordinary scene that Obama's aides hoped would convey a hopeful message about race relations and end a controversy that has ballooned into a major distraction for a president pushing an ambitious agenda."

The New York Times said:

After 10 days of near nonstop news coverage of a case that prompted a thousand 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 didn't spend too much time dwelling on the past, and we decided to look forward."

Professor Gates said in an interview, "I don't think anybody but Barack Obama would have thought about bringing us together."

The two men and their families first encountered each other in the White House library while each group was on individual tours of the White House on Thursday afternoon.

"Nobody knew what to do," Professor Gates said. "So I walked over, stuck out my hand and said, 'It's a pleasure to meet you.' That broke the awkwardness."

Now it's up to the public to decide what to make of the meeting and the controversy that started it all.