• Mike K

    Our tax dollars hard at work. This makes me sick. What a self-aggrandizing publicity stunt. Obama should have kept his mouth shut in the first place. So to cover his ass he’s having a beer bash on the white house lawn in the name of… whatever he thinks this is achieving. My disappointment with this guy grows more each week.

  • pizzlepaps

    Maybe you should have tried out for president then genius. Oh what’s that? Too lazy? Yea, put up or shut up.

  • Mike K

    Lazy? No, it’s not a job I would want. I don’t want to eat Lima beans for dinner either, but that doesn’t mean I’m too lazy to cook them.

    Did YOU run for President? I guess that makes us both lazy.

    I’m not interested in being president. That’s why I voted for him, so he could do it. If I hadn’t had high hopes for him back in November there would be no room for disappointment.

  • Sounds like you had unrealistic expectations. I think he’s doing the best he can with what he’s got. Most people don’t like big changes, for every giant step back we’ve been taking he’s more or less forced to take strategic baby steps forward if he actually wants to accomplish anything, especially anything with a significant impact.

  • Johnny

    Publicity stunt? Are you mental? In case you haven’t noticed race is still a huge issue in this country, and what Obama did (quite successfully, I might add) was to inject a bit of civility into a discussion that almost always generates harsh dialog. Two guys, a black man who was wrongly arrested, and a white cop who was accused of being a racist, sitting down at a table like two adults and getting to know the man across the table from them. I thought is was symbolic and an historic moment.

  • lumpi

    I found it to be a pretty smart move as well. If there is one thing this world lacks, it’s dialog. This sends a nice message.

  • Rev

    Holy shudders. I wonder how many pics were actually taken in a matter of 30 seconds.

    The whole thing may seem a bit hoakey, mainly due to the media riding this like a prized stalion, but I think it is a good civil thing. After Obama made the mistake of opening his mouth he had to do something to smooth it over. I’m still for Obama.
    He seems more real and less “official statement from the President”. Which I am sure is what they were going for

  • RP Hoogle

    Zoom in on Biden’s ass at 1:23 ;D

  • Patricio

    Everything a president does can be seen as a “publicity stunt” if you’re inclined to disagree with him. What aspect of a presidency isn’t covered by the media? Hardly anything.

    At least Obama is trying to get people together. Bush’s “publicity stunts” were more along the lines of facist propaganda and when he had a beer with someone you can be sure that they all agreed on the same things beforehand.

  • Mike K

    I think Rev gets what I meant. By publicity stunt I mean being outside where a media pen will snap a thousand pictures a second. If they were to do this behind closed doors it would seem more genuine.

    Regardless of who was right or wrong (in this case, both, IMO), people should make decisions for themselves based on the outcome of an investigation, not wait to see what the president does.

    Sure it’s a big accomplishment for the two opposing parties to sit at a table and talk this out, but do they really need the POTUS and VP to mediate?

    Next he’ll have lunch with the cop and the taser lady.

  • bigjohn756

    Hey, it’s a relief from the Michael Jackson saturation coverage, isn’t it?
    Besides, no sound bite? take millions of identical photos instead.

  • How many falsely arrested people from poor neighborhoods score a beer with the President? People who actually ARE victims of racial or financial status profiling? Approximately zero. When it happens to a relatively wealthy guy, it’s international news, beer with the President, book deals…

    It would be interesting to see a graph showing the paychecks of everyone at that table. The cop’s would probably be embarrassing. They pay those guys like they pay teachers. As little as possible.

    Justice is expensive and unfortunately not everyone in this country can afford to buy it when they need it most.

  • Arlo

    Yawn.

    That is all.

  • TDavis

    Ooop!
    Video removed!
    Can someone transcribe for me?

  • Amanda

    I’m getting really tired of the uninformed “my confidence is dropping in “Mr Yes We Can” because he hasn’t changed the world in 5 minutes”. He may be the president, but he has a government AND a country to negotiate with.

    I’ve recently been re-watching “The West Wing” and the parallels are almost eeiry. An ep I watched last night even went into the negotiations the prez and his staff went through over a gay marriage bill (this show was 10 years ago!). Yes, the prez was for gay rights but he had temper what he WANTED with what the govt and country NEEDED.

    Yes, I know that’s just a TV show, but if you can’t have empathy for what must be THE hardest job in the world and the balancing act it must take, then it’s Obama who doesn’t have the problem.