Fortunately, Mediaite has come up with some costume suggestions for you. Pulled straight from the headlines, these are guaranteed to be hits:

For obvious reasons, the current president of the United States is likely to be a popular Halloween costume this year. But beyond form-fitting Hart Schaffner Marx suits, the challenge remains: How is a trick-or-treater supposed to pull off the look?

Fortunately, cable pundit/voice of reason Glenn Beck is on the case. A well-executed Obama according to Glenn Beck’s imagination should wear a Che Guevara t-shirt, a Hitler mustache, and a Soviet-style ushanka, preferably bearing a red hammer-and-sickle. Gasoline can for torching the Average American optional.

Barack Obama, According to Keith Olbermann’s Imagination

Cable pundit/voice of reason Keith Olbermann, on the other hand, might have slightly different ideas about what constitutes a good Obama costume. Olbermann’s Obama should have billowy, flowing wings, a resplendent halo, and, if budget allows, a heavenly host of sanctified Cabinet appointees carrying blazing swords and playing gleaming trumpets, singing the praise of the anointed one, and also mentioning offhandedly that Bush kind of sucked.

Summer of Death

Year-by-year, the Grim Reaper is always a popular Halloween costume, particularly among people who don’t have any costume ideas when they go to Party City on October 30th and kind of just phone it in. But coming off the Summer of Death, the costume has a special resonance this year. A (sexy) black hood, (sexy) black robe, and (sexy) blood-dripping scythe are of course mandatory, but how to work in the contemporary angle? It would probably be in poor taste to carry photos of Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Farrah Fawcett, Walter Cronkite, etc. A safer bet might be to carry around copies of expired mags Gourmet, Trump, Vibe, Nickelodeon Magazine, etc.

Levi Johnston

Last year’s Levi costume would have been an awkward suit and a hockey stick, but this year it’s much different — now that he’s an aspiring male model. Sarah Palin‘s former-almost-son-in-law is promising to reveal “huge” things about the former VP candidate, but the big news is his upcoming spread in Playgirl. For this popular costume, just wear briefs and bask in your 15 minutes of fame (briefs optional).

Next Page: Great newsy group costumes, and a twist on the Andre Agassi look

Afterward — meaning 30 seconds later — some members of the media appeared momentarily frustrated that the summit had turned out to be a short, silent, photo-op. Where was the teachable moment in that President Obama?! The press was only slightly appeased when Sgt. Crowley gave his own press conference following the drinks (see below). Anyway in case you missed any of it here is a quick roundup of media coverage, couched in mild apology (except for Drudge, who doesn’t apologize), some good puns (”audacity of hops” from Jake Tapper for the win) and, in our case, set to music.

To begin, the play-by-play from some reporters on the scene who wanted you to know they were aware that the wasn’t real news:

Jake Tapper via Twitter:

• “For what it’s worth, the only one who drank the 100% American beer was Prof Gates, who opted for a Sam Adams Light.”

• “Forgive me: notes from the Suds Summit > http://bit.ly/gDe4l”

Mark Knoller via Twitter:

• “More info (not news): Obama had Bud Light; Biden: Bucklers; Gates: Sam Adams Light; Crowley: Blue Moon. (Alert the Pulitzer Committee).”

• “It’s over. Both Crowley and Gates and families have departed the WH. (Now we wait for the new era in race relations to begin.)”

And then the official sum-up from the Times vaguely acknowledging that perhaps the press had gone a bit overboard in it’s coverage:

The much-anticipated “beer summit” of President Obama, the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts took place Thursday night, accompanied by minute-by-minute reporting from the White House press corps, countdown clocks from the cable news networks, and a last-minute addition by the White House in the form of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Also this from Michael Scherer at Swampland, acknowledging that there were in fact important issues to be discussed, they just were addressed by the participants:

The two combatants in a confrontation that roiled a nation, raising unresolved issues of a race, class and police power, were shown to sit together with the nation’s political leaders. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, Vice President Joe Biden, Obama and four glasses of beer. That was all, save some peanuts. Never mind the complex issues. Never mind the question of resolution. Never mind what they said.

Also, this Nightline spot from Jake Tapper:

Here’s the official responses from the participants, wherein we learned that no apologies were made over beers but Gates and Crowley are considering a lunch date.

President Obama said: “I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart. I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”

Professor Gates: Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control…Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country in which police officers put their lives at risk to protect us every day, and, more than ever, I’ve come to understand and appreciate their daily sacrifices on our behalf. I’m also grateful that we live in a country where freedom of speech is a sacrosanct value and I hope that one day we can get to know each other better, as we began to do at the White House this afternoon over beers with President Obama.

Sgt. Crowley, who opted to hold his own press conference — who wants to bet there is a book deal on the way for him as we speak?:

And here’s The Daily Show version:

And despite his efforts — in speeches, news conferences, town-hall-style meetings and other forums — to address public misgivings, 69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.

But losing to what exactly? Health care is a tough topic to sell on any day — it’s detailed, unwieldy and not at all sexy, all terrible qualities where cable coverage is concerned. However you’d think in a slow news July it might get a bit more traction. Instead what we have been getting is the Birthers, and discussions over what type of beer the President prefers. Is that about to change?

Sort of. At least one of these stories promises to dominate today: At 5pm the President will be meeting Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. Crowley (and probably most of the White House press corp.) for the much-hyped “Beer Summit.” But today also marks the 40 day anniversary of Neda’s death. Neda, you may recall, was the young Iranian woman whose death at the hands of Iranian police during last month’s sweeping election protest was captured on video and watched around the world, sparking outrage and quickly becoming a powerful symbol for the protesters. Rallies are being held in Iran today to mark it — rallies that Neda’s mother has apparently been banned from attending. ABC’s Jim Sciutto appears to be Twittering from the ground there at the moment and reports that: “Crowds chanting ‘death to the dictator’, others saying ‘Neda isn’t dead, the regime is.’ ”

Swampland’s Michael Scherer wrote an excellent post the other day about silly summer news and “the continuing, fascinating, slow, gradual turmoil in Iran.”

The story in Iran, in other words, appears to be far more interesting and uncertain than it was even was a few weeks ago, when all the Twitter caricatures turned green and CNN went wall-to-wall.

One wonders if today’s protests will be enough to knock the Iran storyline back into the headline space it occupied prior to being knocked out by the death of Michael Jackson. It would certainly be a nice break from the Birthers and the Poetry of Palin.

“If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which ‘equal justice before law’ is a lived reality.” (Henry Louis Gates, The Root)

On Friday, President Barack Obama surprised the Washington Press Corps with an impromptu jacking of the daily press briefing to “clarify” his comments on the arrest of scholar Henry Louis Gates.

As some of you may recall, Obama told Chicago reporter Lynn Sweet that he was a friend of Gates, therefore biased, didn’t know all the facts, but thought the actions of the Cambridge Police Department in arresting Gates was “stupid.” This comment got a lot of “right ons” in the black blogosphere, including some “damn straights” in our household.

Well, politics-schmolitics. The president “recalibrated” his statements after some caterwauling from … ahem … everywhere. He called the arresting officer a good cop. He wanted to take back the “stupid” comment and reassure everyone that he had no idea his little statement would obscure his health care initiative.

Personally, I think the president was speaking from his gut at the conference. Why anyone would be shocked that a black man who once supported legislation against racial profiling would side with his friend, another black man of stature who’d been arrested at his own home, is beyond me. He was basically standing up for another individual from his particular racial/class/income tax bracket.

(T)here are a class of black people, who like other highly accomplished people, have higher expectations, for how the police treat all people, but specifically for how cops treat them. I think it’s important to remember, when you hear Barack Obama doubling down on this, exactly what world of black people he’s rolling with. It’s worth understanding, specifically, the world of Valarie Jarrett. It’s worth understanding that Harold Ford isn’t just a black guy, he’s the scion of a southern political dynasty. This isn’t Good Times. Or the Coates family. (Though we are on our way up, Negroes. Hide your debutantes, and guard your grill.)

There’s a way of doing this analysis as a criticism–i.e. they only care because it’s Gates. Surely class plays a role, but I think seeing it that way is as reductive as a strict race analysis. (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

The black elite having each others’ back and what not. But Obama’s the president, not Cornel West, so … let the backtracking commence.

“This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up,” Obama said of the racial controversy. “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could’ve calibrated those words differently.” (AP)

The officer, Sgt. James Crowley spoke with the president for five minutes over the phone and suggested that he and Gates should “have a beer” and in the name of Post-Racial America, Gates agreed.

“It was very kind of the President to phone me today. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color.

And to that end, I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS. I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige.

Is it over? Can I come out now? This has been the most frustrating of boondoogles as the Gates-Crowley affair soon became a racial Rashomon-Rorschach Test for the nation. How you viewed it and who you believed often depended on who you were. If you were Harold Ford Jr., you suddenly wanted to put a foot in someone’s ass. If you were Mike Barnicle you were wondering why all these Richie Rich black folk were so darn angry. I mean, you have money and prestige! Why the long faces? The cop was just doing his job!

Then there were the folks who felt Gates was in the wrong because he got mad. I have a news flash for those folks, people get livid on cops all the time. It doesn’t always lead to immediate arrest, if arrest at all. Again, I repeat, unless he went Hong Kong Fooey on Crowley with his cane, seriously, where was the threat other than the threat of Gates annoying him? Crowley had the badge, the gun and the power to take away someone’s freedom and Gates had … his mouth. That’s not exactly a fair fight.

But not that we’ve entered the shangri-la phase of this saga that will hopefully end with beer photo-ops at the White House, we can put a Rodney King-esque “Can’t We All Just Get Along” tag on the end of this debacle. What have we learned from this, kiddies? Can’t we all just get along? Apparently not yet. We’re not quite at “Kumbya” in so-called Post-Racial America.

Danielle Belton has been writing the popular “The Black Snob” blog since August 2007.  She has contributed to the American Prospect, NPR, the Huffington Post and has been featured on Nightline. This column originally appeared on The Black Snob here. Learn more about Danielle here.

The President stopped short of saying that he had apologized to Crowley, and did not stay to answer questions. In the ensuing briefing with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the assembled press attempted to nail down that fact, without success.

For my part, I asked Gibbs if the President had expressed disappointment at the fact that all of the outrage centered on his word choice, and not on the circumstances of Gates’ arrest. He referred me back to the President’s remarks.

It is remarkable that this comment has created such a firestorm that the President felt compelled to address it in this way. I am a little bit surprised, however, that he didn’t stick around to take some questions. While the President walked his statement back a little, he mostly stuck to his guns, saying both parties could have done better. Left unsaid by the President was the fact that only one of those parties was specially trained to do better.

Will this story die here? Perhaps in the mainstream media, after a weekend of talking-heads chatter. Either way, an opportunity was missed to discuss the dynamic between black people and the police. Instead, we get to focus on the words “stupidly” and “apology,” and parse the political effects.

Tommy Christopher is a freelance writer, blogger, and online journalist based out of New Jersey and Washington, DC. He has covered the progressive political scene and the historic 2008 elections, including live coverage from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and becoming a freelance White House reporter in early 2009. This move follows a year in which he was able to break a number of big stories and was quoted in print and online by everyone from the LA Times and the New York Times to the Huffington Post and Hot Air. Tommy can also be found at his own blog: DailyDose.us. Follow him on Twitter here.