LATEST: OBAMA AND GATES MEETING FOR A PINT THURSDAY AT WHITE HOUSE: CLICK HERE

OBAMA REACHED CAMBRIDGE COP CROWLEY AT IRISH PUB: CLICK HERE

NIALL O'DOWD: WHY GUINNESS WOULD BE GOOD FOR OBAMA, GATES AND CROWLEY: CLICK HERE

PROF. HENRY GATES IS HALF-IRISH AND RELATED TO THE COP WHO ARRESTED HIM: CLICK HERE

MEET GATES' IRISH ANCESTOR, WARLORD KING NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES: CLICK HERE

NIALL O'DOWD: OBAMA WRONG ABOUT INCIDENT BETWEEN BLACK SCHOLAR AND IRISH COP: CLICK HERE

NIALL O'DOWD: OBAMA NEEDS TO STICK TO 'JUST THE FACTS, MAAM': CLICK HERE

When the President comes calling, where better to take his call than at your favorite local Irish pub?

Sergeant James Crowley, who is at the center of the Professor Henry Gates arrest case  took the call from President Obama on Friday at Tommy Doyle's Irish Pub in Kendall Square where he was huddling with fellow cops.

“I ran over to grab some drinks, and the bartender told me, ‘Hey, they’re on the phone with President Obama,’ ” waiter Kyle Shearer told the Boston Herald  with a nod toward the back table where Crowley had been seated with a group of colleagues. “I couldn’t believe it until I got close enough to hear Obama’s voice.”

Shearer told the newspaper she overheard the president apologize to the Irish American cop and ask him if there was anything he could do. Perhaps influenced by his surrounding Crowley suggested a beer with Gates and Obama at the White House. Obama quickly agreed.

Shortly after  after the phone conversation, the president appeared live on the TV screen in the bar talking about the call.  

“The president was on TV, talking about the man I was standing next to,” Shearer told the herald.  “Even I felt powerful. And I’m just a lowly waiter.”

Afterward, the mood of everyone in the pub lifted, he said, there was a huge cheer and a couple of cops bought a round of Bud Light.

“When we heard the cheer, my husband said, ‘It must be soccer or cricket,’ ” a customer Tammy Curtis said. “I mean, what were the chances of us walking into all that?”

Both Crowley and Gates said Friday they will take the president up on his offer to have a beer at the White House.