[Updated at 7:00 p.m.: The summit has taken place and we now have the official beer tally. President Obama and Sgt. Crowley stayed with their announced choices, but Professor Gates changed it up a bit and drank a Sam Adams Light. Joe Biden, who joined the other three, enjoyed a nonalcoholic brew called Buckler. For more details, read the account on The Caucus.–Ed.]

Yes, folks, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The White House has revealed which beers will be consumed during President Obama’s mediation session tonight with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University and Sgt. James Crowley, the Cambridge police officer who arrested him.

The President will drink Bud Light. Professor Gates has apparently opted for Red Stripe, the Jamaican lager, while Sergeant Crowley has selected Blue Moon, a Belgian-style wheat beer.

A Huffington Post headline, noting the obvious, termed the choices “Red, Light and Blue,” and in fact it’s hard to imagine that the selections were not subject to a bit of orchestration. Yet if someone was semi-alert to the color scheme, the politics of the selections leaves at least something to be desired. At the risk of over-analysis (and honestly, isn’t that what politics is good for?), we now look a little deeper at the significance of each choice.

The President, who like every Ivy League Democrat must battle the public impression that he’s an effete snob, made the sensible political decision to go for an American everyman’s beer. But by choosing Bud Light rather than simply Budweiser perhaps he didn’t go far enough. Instead of just grabbing a brew at the end of the day he’s counting calories with a light beer, which might make sense if he were overweight. But he’s thin. So the light beer comes off as a little too fussy, dare we say, a little too girly-man.

Professor Gates, of that elite Cambridge institution, also had to ground himself. But you can look at his choice two ways. The flipside of the serious academic is Spring Break, the seasonal ritual of debauchery, and Red Stripe is a party beer, associated (at least from a northeastern point of view) with loosening up the demanding strictures of academic life. It’s also from Jamaica, an island with a population primarily of African descent, so perhaps Professor Gates chose Red Stripe as an expression of racial solidarity. Hard to tell how that plays. On the one hand, this meeting is partly about overcoming racial attitudes that separate Americans. On the other, can’t we overcome without giving up our individual identities?

Sergeant Crowley’s selection is the most puzzling of all. Clearly, the police officer wanted to go against type. Instead of the shot-and-a-beer brew one might stereotypically associate with a cop, he instead went with something that sounds like a craft beer. Yet, as any craft beer fan will scornfully inform you, Blue Moon is made by Coors Brewing Company, and therefore lacks even a shred of craft-brew cred.

What’s more, the Coors family is known for its conservative politics, which, whatever Sergeant Crowley’s personal politics, may indicate insensitivity to the bigger picture. And while Blue Moon could be read as a nod to Sergeant Crowley’s colleagues in blue, the beer is of the Belgian style known as white ale. Another nod to racial identity? Not well thought out!

Of course, each man may well have chosen the beer he likes best to drink, right?

No way. Nobody would choose any of these beers because he likes drinking them.

I’ll tell you what I would have done if I were President Obama. First of all, I wouldn’t give anybody a choice. I’d throw political symbolism out the door. Then, I’d import a keg of Guinness Stout directly from Dublin, because the kegs from Ireland are simply superior to anything out of a bottle or can. Then I’d import a Dublin publican to serve the Guinness because drawing a proper pint is an art that requires vast experience.

Then, I’d sit ’em down at a bar (because I’d bring in the actual pub – this is the White House, it can do anything). “Gates, you, over there. Crowley, you, here. Sit. Publican, draw us some pints!’’

And as that smooth, deep, dark stout begins to pour forth, and the publican perhaps tells a few stories in his rich Irish brogue, a feeling of calm brotherhood settles over the room. You cannot fight over the first Guinness. Add in 10 more pints and a rugby match and you’ve got a riot. But a pint of Guinness in a Dublin bar at the White House? Skip? Jim? I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

In the end, the two of them will be doing ads for Guinness.

For a slightly less fanciful reading of the situation, here’s The Daily Beast’s interpretation of the beer selections.

But enough from me. What beers would you serve and drink at the White House tonight?