This is nothing short of embarrassing. I think the Obama administration needs to get a Gift Zsar immediately. Can they hire Martha Stewart or something?
Before his trip, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was effusive in his praise of our new president. According to The Guardian, he “lavished praise on Barack Obama before flying to Washington for his first White House meeting with the new US president.” As is the custom, the Prime Minister of our closest ally came bearing some historically significant, appropriate gifts, including,
Mr Brown’s gifts included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President.
Mr Obama was so delighted he has already put it in pride of place in the Oval Office on the Resolute desk which was carved from timbers of Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute.
Another treasure given to the U.S. President was the framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans and given to Queen Victoria.
Finally, Mr Brown gave a first edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.
And what did Mr. Restore Our Reputation In The World give to the leader of Great Britain in return?
President Obama gave Prime Minister Brown a 25-DVD box set of classic American films.
Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert couldn’t have thought of something like that in their wildest dreams! How humiliating, for Obama, and America.
The Daily Mail reports that “No 10 had tried to keep the present a secret, refusing to answer reporters who asked what President Obama had given to mark the reaffirmation of the special relationship.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not play second fiddle to Obama in the humiliating gift giving department. She is every bit his equal!
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving him a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button†on U.S.-Russia relations.
She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?†Clinton asked.
“You got it wrong,†Lavrov said.
Instead of “reset,†Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.â€
Instapundit says, “The country’s in the very best of hands.”