Recently, there’s been a trend of designating events as scandalous by adding the suffix –gate. This practice apparently stems from some long-forgotten political scandal called “Watergate,” which involved a president. I guess that just serves to make “Beergate” an even more apt title for the current controversy surrounding the decisions of another president, Barack Obama.

Obama is trapped in a chain of events so monumental that it has merited two –gates. First it was Gates-gate, so named because the spark that lit this conflagration was the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Officer Sgt. James Crowley. Gates was now-famously arrested as he tried to gain entrance into his house despite a jammed door. The arrest quickly blew up into a national news story about racism, cops, and, of course, Barack Obama (whether you knew it or not, all national news stories are about Obama).

Obama quickly embraced the time-tested crisis response of many American Presidents: alcohol. In order to solve this entire mess in one fell swoop, Obama has invited Gates and Crowley to join him for a beer tomorrow at the White House. Of course, alcohol consumption is an time-honored tradition amongst American politicians, but Obama has taken the unusual route of not only inviting non-politicians to join, but also talking about his alcohol habits publicly. Cue: Beergate. A scandal so important it desires its own name. A scandal far more powerful than the diluted Watergate.

Of course, Obama’s choice of beers is a decision that requires serious examination. Hence, brave reporters questioned Press Secretary Robert Gibbs extensively on Obama’s beer choice. From Politico:

Q: Okay. And another subject, Officer Crowley is drinking Blue Moon, we hear Professor Gates is drinking Red Stripe or Becks — what’s the president drinking?
MR. GIBBS: The president had a Budweiser at the All-Star Game, so — why are you looking at me like that? That’s what he drank.
Q: We’re talking Blue Moon, Red Stripe, Becks —
MR. GIBBS: What’s wrong with Budweiser? Why do you hate Budweiser? (Laughter.)
Q: Well, he could get —
MR. GIBBS: Why do you hate Budweiser, Wendell? (Laughter.) Wendell, how about this — how about you and I, we’ll go pick out the beer, we’ll do the beer run. Uh-oh, hold, please. (Laughter.)
Q: I’m happy to do that.
MR. GIBBS: The mortgage services meeting is tomorrow. Apparently this has nothing to do — (laughter) — unclear whether beer will be served at that meeting and what it will be. (Laughter.) So we’ll go on the beer run together and pick it up in anticipation of the meeting
Q: Pretzel or chips?
MR. GIBBS: Say again?
Q: Pretzel or chips?
MR. GIBBS: We’re just going to go straight beer. No sense in diluting it.

Who cares about health care and war when there’s beer at hand? Of course, the scandal only grows when one realizes Obama might a drink a Belgian beer with a German name… that sounds pretty un-American. Are you sure Obama was born in the USA?

In related news, many of Obama’s friends hope that Obama will continue to abstain from the Vice-Presidential model of beer drinking, which dictates that 4 or 5 hours after drinking a beer, you must shoot a friend in the heart.