Insulting diplomacy

Beer diplomacy is an insult to every blue-collar working man, and President Obama should know better. Sure Professor Henry Louise Gates Jr and Sergeant James Crowley are black and white, respectively, but so what? The original police dispatch never mentioned race, and what is more disturbing is that race became a question after the fact.

President Obama, quick to judgement without all the facts, should never have got involved, and only made a bad situation worse, and continues to do so.

While campaigning in San Francisco's elite Marin county, Mr Obama gave a speech at a white wine and cheese fundraiser that was not to be recorded. In his speech Mr Obama characterised conservatives as beer-drinking, gun-toting, Bible-clinging.

Professor Gates never wanted to be the centre of this brouhaha , but when fellow alumnus President Obama from Harvard got involved, all bets were off.

Why a meeting with beer and not white wine? This condescension to a blue-collar police officer who simply was doing his job is an affront to all hard-working people that earn a living without the benefit of a lofty education, and do so with respect and dignity.

THEODORE CARL SODERBERG