Media Laps Up Obama Beer Summit
For the media, it was an opportunity to tap a keg of sud-soaked clichés.
Ever since President Obama announced he had invited Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley over for a conciliatory beer, the press has tried to out-clever each other with hops-heavy headlines.
"Brewhaha" read more than one headline for the event aimed at quelling tensions over the controversial arrest.
Though the president has downplayed the event, news organizations are drunk with snappy puns.
CBS News has anointed the event "Coalition of the Swilling" and the represented beers "Red, Light and Blue." And Katie Couric's Evening News lead in? "The cop, the prof and the President .. It all comes to a head."
ABC's Jake Tapper is calling it "the audacity of hops."
"Ale to the Chief," declared MSNBC.
Of course, which beer the imbiber-in-chief would select stirred up another level of "news." The New York Post even ran odds on the lager lottery in their piece "Beer Seers Pick Powwow Fave."
But for beer aficionados in Philadelphia, unimpressed with the beverages of choice, the summit was deemed "watered down."
Of course, many in the media are eager to put the "Suds Summit" to rest.
As yesterday's headline in the Washington Examiner put it succinctly: "Beer fest: Please get it over with. Thank you."
Other "beer summit" headlines: