Posted on 03/07/2009 12:30:19 AM PST by Plutarch
You'd think President Obama had booted the Brits out of America — again!
London newspapers are howling over a string of alleged snubs by Obama to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Washington last week — including a squabble over presidential gift-giving.
"President Obama has been rudeness personified towards Britain," sniffed The Daily Telegraph Friday. "His handling of the visit of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to Washington was appalling."
The list of complaints is longer than the Magna Carta: Obama canceled a planned, podium-to-podium news conference with Brown (actually, none was ever scheduled); he recently removed a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office; and he gave gifts to the Brown family that were "about as exciting as a pair of socks," one Fleet Street wag whined.
That last bit might be true. After Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk), Obama offered up ... 25 DVDs of American movie classics.
"Oh, give me strength," wrote one appalled Daily Telegraph staffer. "We do have television and DVD stores on this side of the Atlantic."
Never mind that Brown is blind in one eye and may have a hard time seeing the stars in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or that American DVDs are usually incompatible with British players.
Equally insulting, decided the Times of London, was Michelle Obama's "solipsistic" and "inherently dismissive" gifts to the Browns' two little boys, Fraser and John.
The offending souvenirs? Toy models of Marine One, the President's helicopter — gifts no doubt plucked from the White House gift shop at the last minute, The Times decided....
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Deeply in debt but ostentatious.
Umm, way to go Obama. This article should have been about a faux pas on the British side. Probably not the same HMS President, but during the War of 1812, the USS President was captured and reflagged the HMS President. The USS President was one of the six original American frigates which included the USS Constitution.
You were the a-holes who thought he was going to be so great. He isn't. SITYS.
He's head of government, not head of state. Doesn't lessen the oddness of the gift. I guess Obama was trying to find something uniquely American, and Hollywood is an American institution. Still gobsmackingly tacky. I wonder what he will get when he visits the UK ... the complete Mr. Bean?
Why not a Chia pet? Not only are they very attractive, they promote the ‘green’ concept of growing.
I’m no elitist, but giving a visiting head of state such an impersonal, mundane gift is just plain tacky.
I may have missed something, but who ever said the muslim resident had class. He is a ghetto mutt.
To the Good People of the United Kingdom: please, allow us ordinary American citizens who still remember Winston Churchill with fondness and awe, and who hold you all in a spirit of comraderie and affection to apologize for the disrespectful behavior of the President. (He had better NOT act like a jerk to the Queen! WE HAVE HAD IT WITH THIS PUZZLING AND JUVENILE ATTITUDE TOWARD OUR BELOVED ENGLAND! If he wants to be the President to all of us; he had best get over his Afrocentric and Muslim favoritism. If he doesn’t know how to do it, he could look at old video of how hospitable past Presidents have been to ALL visiting dignitaries.)
You may be right, but for the wrong reason. It may have been a calculated rebuke to Michelle Obama’s apparent hatred of Britain because of the slave trade when the Royal Navy was busily engaged for most of the 19th century capturing slave ships and liberating the captives held within.....
Actually, it could have been just a little more embarrassing......he could have given autographed copies of his two books to the Brown’s.
By his dissing of Brown he is showing the Muslims that he is on their side, and the days of an “English” England are rapidly fading. While the papers are aghast at the snub, I bet his actions are going over very well in the Muslim areas and Mosques throughout England.
One has to wonder if “The Patriot” or even “Braveheart” may have been included in the DVD selections.
He's also a phony. Barry was brought up by a well-off white family in Hawaii and went to private schools. Before that, he had lived abroad, where he also went to private schools (attended, as usual in those places, by the children of diplomats and other well-off foreigners). There's no ghetto in that boy! Although he certainly wants to give the impression that there is. It adds to his creds with the hoods he would like to count as his "bros."
His wife has a more modest background, but even she isn't from the ghetto. Just no-class.
Unfortunately, the world will have to get used to this type of appalling behavior for the next four years. The Kenyan Clown and his circus are going to redefine our diplomatic relationships in a manner unprecedented in American history.
We can only hope that the next occupant of the office will be able to mend some of these. That hope is all that we have at this point, since there's literally nothing that we can do at this point. The executive is in charge of foreign relations, and even if we were to take back the House in 2010, it wouldn't matter a whit with regard to the administration's conduct in foreign relations --- while we might be able, for instance, to defund some foreign aid, such as the egregious sending of money to terrorists, we still would not be able to have any influence over the embarrassing antics of the members of the executive.
I guess those people also think that since we're in an economic mess, Obama ought to save the country some money by announcing his new programs from the Oval Office, instead of flying all over the country to make announcements?
Meanwhile....
Gaffe Watch: Hillary Tells Europeans U.S. Democracy Much Older Than Europe’s
Drowning Kittens is small time to the baby killing Obama.
He is in to sucking the brains from human babies, or throwing them in a laundry basket to die.
Whats a few cats to a baby killer?
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