Irish cousins Obama, Gates and Crowley meeting for a beer Thursday

Three feuding Irish cousins — President Obama, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cambridge, Mass. Police Sgt. James Crowley — are planning to bury the hatchet over a pint at the White on Thursday at at 6 p.m.

IrishCentral reported that Obama surprised Crowley by calling him Friday at his favorite Irish pub, Tommy Dolan's Joint in Kendall Square, and asking Crowley to join him and Gates to officially seal the peace treaty between the three men. ABC News first reported the timing of the three-way sit-down.

It will be the first meeting, and presumably a nicer one, between Gates and Crowley since the Irish cop arrested the famous professor while he was attempting to break into his own home after losing his house keys. Police said Gates was only arrested when he refused to provide identification and swore at Gates. The minor charge of disorderly conduct was quickly dropped.

Obama said at his news conference last week that the police acted “stupidly,” although as commentary and controversy swirled, he later said he “could have calibrated those words differently.” The White House then shifted into major damage-control mode to quickly resolve the issue, which was proving a major distraction to the President's agenda. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told “Fox News Sunday” that officials hoped to “get that done in the next several days.”

The planned reunion was the subject of some good-natured verbal jousting at Gibbs’ briefing on Monday, at which the selection of beers for the three men came up.

Crowley reportedly likes Blue Moon, and Gates is apparently a fan of Red Stripe or Becks. And the President?

Gibbs said that "the president had a Budweiser at the All-Star Game, so..."

Despite their shared Irish roots, it doesn't look like Guinness is on the menu at the White House Pub. Crowley is of course a true Irish-American. Obama and Gates also have Irish ancestry: Obama, whose mother was Irish, has strong ties to County Offaly, and Gates, as he revealed on PBS, is descended from Irish chieftain Niall of the Nine Hostages.