Analysis: Obama's rare race foray a positive step

Even some of Obama's fiercest opponents say that by bringing together the black professor and the white police officer who arrested him, the president had orchestrated an unlikely and unifying moment, a peaceable kingdom in the Rose Garden.

Symbolic? Yes. Made for TV? Certainly. But these things could not obscure the fact that a president who has tried to transcend racial matters was down in the arena, talking about race.

"The cynic in me wants to shoot holes in it, the critic in me wants to pick it apart," said conservative radio host Mike Gallagher. "But I'm sorry, you have two sides, polar opposites in a racially tinged confrontation like this, sitting down with the president of the United States over a beer at the White House?

"This is a great step forward in showing how you can take a confrontation, a conflict, and make a positive out of it."

This also is the kind of direct action Obama had sidestepped as he sought the support of white voters weary of racial dissonance.

In March, Obama was asked whether he agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder's comments that many Americans have been "cowards" because "we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

"I'm not somebody who believes that constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions," Obama told The New York Times. "I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care."

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