"A Great Teaching Moment"

The much-touted White House “beer summit” may have helped President Obama’s image but probably did little to advance America toward improved race relations, says Thom Serafin in this appearance on Fox Chicago News.

“It was a good media opportunity and it was good healing for his public relations images around the country,” Serafin says. “But as far as the racial relationships and discussing that issue, it was an opportunity, I think, lost.”

Still, Serafin, President and CEO of Serafin & Associates, Inc., says the beer summit – promoted as a chance to heal racial tension – amounted to more than simply a presidential photo op. He says Obama seized an opportunity to focus public attention on a positive message and away from his plummeting poll numbers.

“It’s not necessarily (just) a photo op,” Serafin says. “It’s serious business for the president and his media advisors. Listen, the August recess could not come soon enough for them. His numbers have been plummeting as far as a job approval is concerned. He had to show some sense of understanding here. He brought people together. He took advantage of the opportunity.”

Serafin notes that Obama pushed the beer summit as a chance to bring Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. together for a conversation with Cambridge, Mass. Police Sgt. Joseph Crowley, who arrested Gates after Gates broke into his own home upon returning from vacation. The incident quickly became a flashpoint for racial tension.

Obama’s initiative followed the president’s notorious faux pas – saying the police in Cambridge “acted stupidly” by arresting Gates. Obama later backpedaled from the remark, while pushing the beer summit.

“Once you go off teleprompter, off message, you get into these types of situations,” Serafin says. “They put this beer summit together to make it look like a regular guy (situation). But nobody drinks Bud Light out of a glass. It’s always out of long necks.”

At the beer summit, all four of the gentlemen in attendance – Obama, Vice President Biden, Gates and Crowley – drank their frosty beverages from glasses rather than bottles.

Serafin also talks during this appearance on Fox about the federal Cash for Clunkers program and the federal government’s failure to illuminate the details of spending through its stimulus program. Among states, Illinois ranked last in availability of information about the stimulus spending.

“Information is knowledge and knowledge is power,” Serafin says. “And that’s how government is run here in the state of Illinois – you keep information from people.”