Beer Summit 2009: A Few Predictions For Tonight

The sky is crisp and blue at Anyguey headquarters after days of terrifying rain, and is it any wonder why? Beer Summit, bitches! Bring out the good duct tape because President Obama, Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley are playing Edward Fortyhands at the White House tonight, and nobody gets to pee until they say, “I’m sorry.” Here’s what we hope happens.

First of all, the great debate from the other day has been officially settled. (Yes, yes, we know. You can relax now.) Instead of making everyone settle on one beer there will be a veritable smorgasbord, with Red Stripe for Skip Gates, Blue Moon for Officer Crowley, and Bud Light for Obama because that’s what Real Americans With Real American Birth Certificates drink. Of course, all three beers are owned by foreign companies now. Yes, even Budweiser. Think about that the next time you see those Clydesdales storming past a huge American flag or something: those horses work for the Belgians now.

We’ve had our fair share of Beer Summits in our life, and some have gone fantastically and some ended with, well, someone like Officer Crowley showing up and telling us that The Summit was over. If our experience is any indication, The Summit can go any number of ways:

The Drunk in the Park Scenario

The White House has already announced that, weather permitting, they’ll be holding The Summit on the picnic tables out back, near Sasha and Malia’s playground equipment. If this is anything like past Beer Summits we’ve had outside, at a park bench, near a playground, those dudes are gonna get wasted and start playing on the swings. This could be a very good thing, and promotes bonding because everybody’s watching everybody else’s back, looking out for the cops. White House or not, they’ve got to be careful about open container laws, cause those cops are NEVER cool.

The Dude Paradise Scenario

Maybe it rains, and they have to go inside. If Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ attitude about this is any indication, the White House is totally prepared to pander to a borderline insulting degree to the “average” American. Hopefully, this means they’ll clear out an office in the West Wing and set up a rec room, with darts and foosball and Nintendo Wii (maybe with the new game) and an iPod port so they can all argue over who’s iPod they should listen to. Perhaps the three men will resist at first, but we all know that the power of the Dude Paradise rec room is irresistible. Before they know it they’ll be locked in a Wii Tennis tournament at three in the morning, when Obama’s cell phone goes off and, “Oh shit that’s my wife; I gotta take this.” Gates and Crowley bond while making fun of Obama. “You always sound like such a bitch when you’re on the phone with her, brah. Your voice goes up all weird and high.” “Well, I bought myself an extra half hour, didn’t I? Game on, motherfuckers.” They stumble out best friends.

The “Getting Right to the Point” Scenario

Oh God, don’t do this. Don’t ever ever do this. We’ve all had this, where you’ve got to have that Beer Summit to resolve some dispute and somebody doesn’t even want to wait until the first beer is poured. “Guys, let’s just get right to it.” This never works. The whole point of the Beer Summit is to let the booze relax you a little bit, get you in a better frame of mind. If you jump into this thing still all tense from work or whatever you’re just gonna end up arguing the whole time. Beer Diplomacy is a delicate art, and nobody can be in a hurry. Nobody’s ever had a successful Beer Summit when one of the parties involved is all, “We gotta make this quick, I’m meeting some friends for dinner at 7.” Settle in, gentlemen.

The Shots Come Out Scenario

Beer Diplomacy is generally a good thing, but they really ought to be careful about that point in the night where somebody (Gates?) starts calling out for shots. “I’m buying, I’m buying. Who’s in for a shot? Crowley? Come on, man.” “Oh, alright.” These wounds are still fresh, and there’s still a lot left to be said about race and power that needs to be said in as delicate a way as possible. If they’re not careful, Beer Diplomacy can quickly devolve into Whiskey Diplomacy, which is a euphemism for “yelling at you until I punch you in the side of the neck.”

Or, more likely, it’ll just be a fairly agreeable, if somewhat tense, photo op that puts a cosmetic band-aid on the crippling Civil Race War that is our “post-racial” America. Really, we hope it goes down exactly like it does in this New Yorker piece by John Kenney, because it just perfectly captures dude-ism in all its glory:

CROWLEY: Can I say something? And I mean this. Ya know what’s awesome is pizza.

GATES: Pizza is awesome. Why is it so awesome?

OBAMA: We could go get pizza right now. I have a plane.

GATES: That’s awesome.

OBAMA: I could pick up the phone right now, get the plane, we could go to Italy for pizza.

CROWLEY: You’re amazing. And really good-looking.

Read the whole thing here. It’s beautiful.

White House ‘Beer Summit’ Becomes Something of a Brouhaha [WSJ]
Obama pauses for ‘beer diplomacy’ [AP]
A Beer with Obama [The New Yorker]