The beer session among President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Harvard Professor Henry Gates, and Police Sergeant James Crowley went well.

In fact, Crowley said he would continue to meet with Gates, whom he controversially arrested on June 16. On that day, Crowley had been called to investigate a suspected burglary at Gates’s house. The scholar had just returned from a foreign trip and had trouble opening his front door.

Crowley said that when he confronted Gates, the academic became abusive. Despite knowing that no burglary had taken place, the policeman ended up arresting him for disorderly conduct, handcuffing him, and taking him down to the station. The charges were later dropped. Gates has said that he was the victim of racial profiling.

At a press conference after the meeting, Crowley said that that he and Gates were “two gentlemen who agreed to disagree.”

During the nationally televised “beer summit,” Crowley did not apologize for arresting Gates. Still, he said that there was to tension at the meeting and that the discussion was productive.

The four men ate peanuts as they chatted over their favorite beers. Obama drank a Bud Light, Crowley a Blue Moon, Gates a Sam Adams Light, and Biden a non-alcoholic Buckler.

(via the Times Online)