What We Learned from the Beer Summit

The Beer Summit was supposed to be a "teaching moment." Now that the last bubble has popped, what have we learned? Several things, although they're probably not what President Obama had hoped.

1. We learned that Obama's first instinct is to blame the police.

2. We learned that the president is prone to making snap judgments without having all the facts.

3. We learned that Obama is easily provoked into making unwise public statements.

4. We learned that Obama is too small a man to apologize, even when he is obviously wrong.

5. We learned that, to cover his derriere, the president is not above organizing an elaborate, money-wasting, time-consuming photo-op that accomplishes nothing. It certainly didn't advance race relations in this country.

6. We learned that Obama is not much of a negotiator. He who would charm dictators and induce terrorists to lay down their weapons was unable to get one of his friends and a police officer who teaches others about racial profiling to agree on the facts of this case. Instead, we hear bromides such as "we agreed to disagree" and "what unites us is more important than what divides us." I can't wait to see how he does in the Middle East.

7. We learned that our president's first summit was a failure, but it's the rest of us who should be crying in our beer.