I have for the most part been posting about our new administration’s leftist policies, which in some unexplainable way have surprised people. But there are some things that transcend politics and one of those is how the President and his administration represent America to other nations. Some people I am sure have heard about Clinton’s gaffe recently during her trip to Russia. For those who haven’t; she handed a button to Mr. Lavrov that was supposed to say “reset” but her staff didn’t translate the word correctly and it actually said “overcharge”. That was a simple honest mistake. One that should not have been made, but still it was simply a mistake.
The way this administration has handled our closest ally; however, has been quite embarrassing for all Americans. I did not realize until recently that soon after the Obama administration took over, they sent a bust of Winston Churchill loaned to American after 9/11 back to the English. It had been sitting in the oval office during Bush’s tenure. This would be fine except that the British did not ask for it back. They in fact offered to let the Obama administration keep it. This was their first act.
Their second act was on the British Prime Ministers first official trip to visit the Obama’s. In accordance with tradition, the two parties exchanged gifts. PM Brown presented Obama with a pen holder carved from wood from the sister ship of the HMS Resolute along with a framed commission of the HMS Resolute. (as in Resolute Desk from the movie National Treasure).
After the uneasy situation created by the Churchill incident, I was sure that the administration would give the PM something from Lincoln since he appears to be an inspiration to the current President. But instead Obama gave PM Brown 24 DVDs of American movies. I just hope his aides remembered that region one formatted DVDs do not play on European DVD players.
The US media has not really covered this incident in great detail, but many British papers have and the British people have also seen this as an insult. After all, they have been our greatest ally over the last 8 years. I too would have to agree that the gift was inappropriate for such a friend and I hope this is not an indication of how Obama and his administration plan to do business in the future. It looks bad upon us all.
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that’s just sad… and embarrissing.
The bad news is, I just heard on Monica Crowley’s radio show that– just as you had feared– the DVDs are not playable in Britain due to the differences you cited in DVD formatting. The good news is– oh; I forgot. There is no good news on this front.
Wow. I was really just kinda kidding. I thought for sure they would not have screwed that up. I remembered because we had that issue in Iraq a few times with DVDs.
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