Perhaps the biggest "teachable moment" from the Henry Louis Gates Jr. saga was for President Barack Obama: If you want to improve race relations, you have to enter the fray.
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."
The standoff between Gates and Obama has the potential to exacerbate tensions. Many blacks supported Gates' claim that he was racially profiled by Crowley, while many whites insisted Crowley displayed no bias in investigating a possible break-in at Gates' home.
Gates demanded an apology from Crowley and called him a "rogue policeman." After Obama said police had "acted stupidly" in arresting an angry Gates for disorderly conduct, Crowley said Obama was "way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts."
The atmosphere was much different after Thursday's conversation.
"No tension," Crowley said.
Mostly, racial conflicts fade out without any consultation, let alone resolution. Imagine the widow of Sean Bell meeting with the New York police officers who shot her husband, or the black teens in Jena, La., talking to the white schoolmate they attacked.
That made the White House meeting even more remarkable — "revolutionary and potentially healing, a peace pipe for modern times," wrote the right-leaning columnist Kathleen Parker.
"When future archaeologists excavate our history, they will doubtless marvel at the symbolism of that simple gesture," she wrote.
It probably never would have happened had Obama not criticized Crowley, a mistake that demanded damage control.
Why not?
"His advisers would have said, 'No, it's not about health care!'" said Rev. Jim Wallis, president of the progressive Christian group Sojourners and author of "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It."

It was political theater — but it sent a powerful message, Wallis said.

"It was a parable for what needs to happen off-camera all the time — that kind of conversation," he said. "Obama was saying, 'This now needs to happen.'"

Obama has rarely joined that conversation since his national debut at the 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, when he declared, "There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America."

But as the first black president, son of a white mother and black father, many say he in uniquely suited — even obligated — to lead the discussion.

"As a white man, I would say the nation needs a president to be proactive on race," Wallis said. "He has a power to be that, the capacity to be that, the identity and the history."

Gallagher said no one besides Obama could have orchestrated this type of resolution.

"You had to almost have a black president who's capable of saying to Gates, the man who feels aggrieved and insulted, 'I need you at the White House.'"

"Obama said ... 'Let's show the world that we're trying to advance race relations rather than digress,'" he continued. "And you know what? As one of his fiercest critics, he gets an A-plus on this. I'm just blown away."

Much has been made of the symbolism of a black president and how he provides an opportunity for people to talk about race. In some ways, race is always an element of any conversation Obama is involved in.

But "watercooler conversations aren't enough any more," Wallis said. "They don't go deep enough, they are too short and they are very safe. You gotta sit at the table."

That's exactly what Crowley, Gates and Obama did on the White House lawn, along with Vice President Joe Biden, whose presence conveniently balanced out the image.

Earlier, Crowley and Gates talked after they crossed paths while separately touring the White House with their relatives.

They continued their tour as one large group.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

PHILADELPHIA – Looking for a top starter to bolster their so-so rotation, the Philadelphia Phillies acquired reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee from the Indians.
The defending World Series champions are sending Cleveland four minor league prospects for Lee and outfielder Ben Francisco, a baseball official familiar with the trade told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The deal is pending medical reviews. Those reviews could take a while because three of the players the Indians are getting from Philadelphia have dealt with recent injuries.
The NL East-leading Phillies are sending Triple-A pitcher Carlos Carrasco, infielder Jason Donald and catcher Lou Marson along with Single-A pitcher Jason Knapp to Cleveland.
The deal means the Indians have traded the reigning American League CY Young winner two straight seasons, as last year Cleveland sent CC Sabathia to the Milwaukee Brewers. Sabathia, however, was in the final year of his contract. He helped pitched the Brewers into the postseason before signing a $161 million, seven-year contract with the New York Yankees.
Lee turns 31 next month and his contract includes an $8 million club option for next season.
Philadelphia pursued Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay, but shifted their attention to Lee because Toronto's asking price for the six-time All-Star is high. The Phillies were reluctant to trade top pitching prospect Kyle Drabek, a right-handed pitcher who was the 18th overall pick in the 2006 amateur draft.
Asked in Seattle whether he felt the Blue Jays dodged a bullet by the Phillies acquiring Lee instead of Halladay, Toronto manager Cito Gaston noted that some of Philadelphia's top prospects were still available and said with a chuckle, "Yeah, I guess. Who knows? They may come back and get (Halladay), too. That'd be a pretty good staff there, wouldn't it?"
Lee gives the Phillies another top starter to join Cole Hamels. The left-hander is 7-9 with a 3.14 ERA in 22 starts this season after going 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA last year. Hamels, who was MVP of the World Series and NLCS last fall, has been inconsistent this season. He's 7-5 with a 4.42 ERA, though he pitched well in a Tuesday night victory over the Diamondbacks.
The Phillies have a comfortable lead in the division — seven games ahead of second-place Florida going into Wednesday's games. They've sought pitching help since No. 2 starter Brett Myers had hip surgery in June. Forty-six-year-old Jamie Moyer leads the staff with 10 wins, but he has a 5.32 ERA.
Francisco is batting .250 with 10 homers and 33 RBIs. He upgrades Philadelphia's bench, which has lacked a solid, right-handed hitter.
___
AP sports writers Tom Withers in Cleveland and Gregg Bell in Seattle contributed to this report.

ROME – The number of prisoners put to death worldwide decreased in 2008, a human rights group said Wednesday, adding that China retained its position as the world's top executioner.
Executions in the United States were down from last year, while Iran and Saudi Arabia appeared near the top of the list of the world's top executioners, the anti-death penalty group Hands Off Cain said in a report about 2008 and the first six months of this year.
The group said that at least 5,727 executions were carried out in 2008, down from 5,851 the year before. It said that 46 countries retained the death penalty last year, three fewer than in 2007, with Burundi and Uzbekistan abolishing capital punishment, and Sierra Leone establishing itself as a de facto abolitionist by not having carried out any executions for more than 10 years.
The report said China accounted for at least 5,000 executions — or 87.3 percent of the total — the same estimate as last year.
Hands Off Cain said its estimates are based on reports by the media and other human rights groups since the exact number of executions in China remains a state secret.
Iran executed at least 346 people last year, down from 355 in 2007; Saudi Arabia put 102 people to death, while in 2007 it accounted for 166 executions. As of June 30, the number of executions in the two countries included four minors in Iran and three in Saudi Arabia, in violation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the report said.
The Rome-based group also said a large number of executions were based on terrorism charges in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran and Iraq. China also ties repression against Tibetans and Uighurs — a Muslim minority in the country's restive far western region of Xinjiang — as part of the war on terrorism, it said.
The United States executed 37 people — five fewer than 2007, continuing a downward trend in the country since 1999, when the number of executions peaked at 98, according to Hands Off Cain. Nearly half the U.S. executions in 2008 were carried out in Texas.
The report also said 111 death sentences were handed down in the United States last year, the lowest number since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976.
The group assigned the "Abolitionist of the Year" award to New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson and Gail Chasey, a member of the state's House of Representatives, for their role in abolishing capital punishment in the U.S. state in March.

PARIS – The pilot of an Air France plane flying from Rome to Paris this month spent a minute without information on the speed of the aircraft, which was equipped with new generation speed sensors installed after the June crash of another flight, the newspaper Le Figaro reported in an article for its Thursday edition.
The report said the lives of passengers on the July 13 flight were not in danger.
Deficient speed sensors, or Pitot tubes, were "a factor, but not the only one" in the June 1 of Air France Flight 447's crash into the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, chief crash investigator Alain Bouillard has said. That crash killed 228 people.
Air France had ordered the replacement of Pitot tubes on their Airbus aircraft and a new generation of sensors, located on the aircraft's exterior, are now being used. Both the old and new sensors are made by France's Thales Group.
Le Figaro cited an internal crew report on the Rome-Paris flight as saying there was a "brutal loss of speed indications," followed by the disappearance of information measuring wind force and other factors.
Telephone calls to Air France officials were not immediately answered. The airlines' offices were closed for the evening.
A spokesman for the main Air France pilots union confirmed the incident to The Associated Press, but said he did not have more information.
"We are aware of the incident. We are awaiting details," said Erick Derivry. If the problem is indeed with the Pitot tubes, the SNPL union will ask Air France "that planes be equipped with Goodrich sensors," he said.
The North Carolina-based Goodrich Corp. also makes Pitot tubes.
Le Figaro quoted an unnamed Air France official saying that "all necessary measures will be taken."