WASHINGTON - With mugs(筒形有柄大杯) of beer and a few minutes of conversation, President Barack Obama tried to pull himself and the nation beyond an uproar(骚乱) over race, sitting on his big back lawn with the black professor and the white policeman whose dispute(争端) had ignited(点燃) a week of fierce(激烈的) debate.
Under the canopy of a magnolia(木兰) tree Thursday evening, a shirt-sleeved(卷起袖子的) Obama joined the other players in a story that had knocked the White House off message: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley. Vice President Joe Biden was also with them on a Rose Garden patio(露台).
The men were seen chatting, each with a mug of beer. The media were stationed far away, out of earshot(听力所及范围).