Dennis Prager: What the Gates-Crowley “Teachable Moment” really teaches
Readers on the left will be shocked, if not incredulous, to learn that neither I nor any conservative I know realized why the president asked Vice President Joseph Biden to join him, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley for their fabled “beer summit” at the White House.
I had simply assumed that the president invited Biden in order to lessen any tension by having someone with no connection to the case join the meeting. Likewise, another conservative, the producer of my radio show, Allen Estrin, assumed that the vice president was in the area and was spontaneously invited to join the trio. My engineer, Sean McConnell, just wondered why the vice president was there.
We were all blindsided by the reason that liberals apparently instinctively understood: to provide racial balance, as it wouldn’t look right if Sgt. Crowley were outnumbered two to one by blacks. In the words of the New York Times coverage of the event: “to add balance to the photo op that the White House presented: two black guys, two white guys, sitting around a table.” Read more…..
Totally with Prager on this one. Of course my opinion usually is. But, it actually never occurred to me until I read it here. Biden was there for balance, 2 – 2. ! Prager is right. Liberals see things in terms of skin color more than conservatives. Who is the racist?
Even if asked the question point blank about skin color counts, I would probably have figured out it was balanced without Biden. i.e, Oblama being 1/2 of each race.