July 31, 2009

Race, Beer, and Product Placement At The Summit

Photo taken from Whitehouse.gov and paid for by our taxpayer dollars.

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The media has had an absolute field day with this whole Henry Louis Gates vs. Sgt. Crowley controversy, and El Presidente thought he could make everything rosy in the Rose Garden by insituting beer diplomacy. (From the chummy photos Gates looked like he could have been the father that Sgt. Crowley never had.)

But what do the beer choices of this summit mean for America? A whole lot of free product placement for starters.

I’d never heard of the wimpy Buckler brand of beer (0.5 percent alcohol and made by Heineken) until Teetotaler Biden decided to consume it yesterday. And I was glad to see Sgt. Crowley give Blue Moon, one of my personal favorites, some increased national visiblity. President Obama ostensibly has to drive around in GM Limos and drink American beer, but in this case he deviated from his blue-collar/trustafarian hipster PBR preference by selecting a Bud light. Sounds American right? Few of us recall that Anheuser-Busch is now owned by a Belgian conglomerate.

As a native New Yorker and staunch anti-Bostonite, Sam Adams isn’t worthy of my attention, so I will not comment further on Professor Gates’ choice.

What’s in store for the new BFFs at their next meeting? One possibility: A corporate outing where the Sgt. and the PhD discuss how to capitalize on their spat.

 

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