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| Mon, 03-09-2009 - 6:05pm |
London aghast at President Obama over gifts given to Prime Minister Brown
BY David Saltonstall
Daily News Senior Correspondent
Updated Saturday, March 7th 2009, 2:03 AM
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.
Brown's wife, Sarah, by contrast arrived with dresses for Sasha and Malia from the UK's trendy Top Shop (with matching necklaces) and a selection of books by British authors.
"A bit of thought had clearly gone into choosing them," crowed The Daily Mail. "Lovely."
The Brits have blown up the alleged snubs into new evidence that the "special relationship" between the two nations is no longer quite so special.
The hand-wringing began last month when Obama removed a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and replaced it with his hero, Abraham Lincoln.
The Times of London immediately traced Obama's "disdain" for Churchill to Kenya, where Obama's grandfather was caught up in the Churchill-led suppression of the 1950s Mau Mau Rebellion that left thousands of Kenyans dead.
"It's not surprising that Mr. Obama didn't want Churchill looking over his shoulder," explained one correspondent.
At this point, the two sides seem to be in full repair mode. The White House let it be known that Obama and Brown shared a chummy phone call as the prime minister was headed home.
And Friday, it was revealed that Obama would be granted a private audience with Queen Elizabeth when he is in London next month.
Quipped one reader of The Sun, "I hope Her Majesty likes DVDs."

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Isn't a lobbyist job to influence legislation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y
>>> one person's terrorist, is another's freedom fighter!!!
We just can't figure out why libs consider Bin Laden THEIR "freedom fighter."
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>>> Totally and utterly on your behalf.
Right...because it's me who's completely dismissing the Democrat names calling for action...the Democrat President who responded...and the Democrat President who SIGNED the regime change policy...and blaming everything, even the writing of the law on some obscure lobbyist. Good grasp there.
>>> You have missed the entire point. Al Qaeda had no proven ties to Iraq.
Actually, the finding was that Al Qaeda had no OPERATIONAL links to Iraq. Clearly there were ties.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/hayes200406020847.asp
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/989201/posts
>>> PNAC had heavy involvement in wanting to have a regime change in this country.
All they had to do was wait. We have a regime change in this country every 4-8 years.
>>> Even if there was bi-partisan approval and belief to what was being told to our Congress about Saddam, after 9-11 all that should have been put aside. Our country had been attacked by Bin Laden and his terrorist group. That is where our focus needed to be at this point in time. Not on foreign fantasies of taking US interest of this country.
"I think that it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once." - Barry Obama, Sept 24, 2008
You might also recall that the war in Afghanistan, which began on October 7, 2001...and the invasion of Iraq didn't begin until March 23, 2003...so it appears that Bush was focusing on one thing at a time...at least militarily.
>>> Saying that the current Administration under Bush had many PNAC members running foreign affairs it is no surprise a lot of information was skewed and misrepresented.
Which information was skewed and misrepresented, and where did this information come from?
>>> The American public and Congress were used at a very vulnerable time to persuade all of us to believe that Al Qaeda had connections to Iraq and/or Saddam.
Which Congressperson was stupid enough to believe that propaganda? Quotes?
>>> It was also wrong for us to be misled into believing we were in further grave danger from Saddam because of WMD.
Democrats wrote open letters imploring the President to attack a foreign country because of the "grave danger" posed by Hussein's WMDs. Clinton justified an attack on a foreign country to the American people because of the "grave danger" posed by Hussein's WMDs. Bush made the same case when that threat presented itself again, and the Democrats took to the stump AGAIN supporting the war because of the "grave danger" posed by Hussein's WMDs....so who was misleading who?
>>> This was not the time nor place to play on such fears.
And yet the Democrats chose exactly those times to play on such fears. They are doing the same thing with this economic "crisis" to push their socialist agenda...I wonder why they always engage in such fear-mongering?
>>> The Administration basically cherry picked the intelligence report to share with the public and to Congress what it wanted to represent in THEIR favor.
Aah...the latest lib allegation of cherry-picking...but strangely, you never bother to produce this other "intelligence" that proved Hussein didn't have WMDs. I'd ask you to back up your allegations, but why bother, when all it will elicit are excuses and excessive tap dancing...but no "evidence." LOL!
>>> If you don't find this highly distressing, I suppose nothing will.
I usually find liberal propaganda to be either sad or amusing...but rarely "distressing."
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I didn't blame the writing of the law on Chalabi who is not at all obscure btw.
Guild Member since 2009
As always - the gift that keeps on giving!!!
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