In the much-anticipated get-together over beer at the White House with the trio of Gates-gate, Obama had little to say, according to Sergeant James Crowley. “He provided the beer.” Perhaps everyone has heard enough from Obama on the topic. In what was supposed to be his strong suit — racial healing — he proved to be his own worst enemy. Another opportunity for the president to pontificate on race became a public relations and polling nightmare. The press discovered to their utter amazement that calling a cop stupid and jumping to the conclusion that he was a racist might not sit well with white voters:

The intriguing possibility comes from a Pew Research Center analysis released Thursday: The poll finds that Obama’s overall approval rating among whites tumbled seven percentage points from just after his July 22 news conference through last weekend, as the focus turned increasingly to his handling of the situation. The percentage of whites who “like” the kind of person he is fell by six points.

Well, Obama has more problems than just Gates-gate, so this incident might not have been all that determinative. Indeed, given how badly the health-care debate has been going, it seems that the Thursday beer break was almost a welcome distraction (like hitting your thumb with a hammer to get rid of a headache).

But perhaps the starry-eyed media learned a lesson: Obama may sound smart, but he doesn’t necessarily know what he is talking about. Whether it is about Crowley’s motives, the blue-red-pill dilemma, the 4 million “saved or created” jobs, or the history of the Middle East, Obama hasn’t seemed grounded in the real world — and it shows. It’s a good lesson that “smooth” doesn’t mean “right.”