I never thought

That I would long for the days when President Bush was giving inappropriate back rubs to the Chancellor of Germany…until I heard (and not from the media, mind you) about President Obama giving the Prime Minister of England a bunch of DVDs.

The Prime Minister gave him an ornamental desk pen-holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President. The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office. And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In return, America’s head of state gave the Prime Minister 25 DVDs of classic American movies. Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “my government delegation went to Washington and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” T-shirts. Still, the classic American movies set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart.

Remember all those people who said that President Bush was an international embarrassment because he was so uncultured and boorish?  At least President Bush said to our greatest ally “hey, that bust you gave us of Winston Churchill as a sign of solidarity after 9/11?  You can have it back”.  That’s right – after his inauguration, President Obama returned the bust of Churchill, which according to some Brits was part of the impetus in PM Brown giving Obama the complete Churchill biography.

Ultimately though, the funny part about all of this is that this is the kind of stuff that all the lefties told me would NEVER happen with Obama.  “He’s so cultured, so worldly, he’ll never make gaffes like that monkey-redneck Bush”.  Well, I guess in their defense that they were right – he made all new gaffes, and insulted our greatest international ally in the process.

You’re off to a rocking good start, Barack!  What’s next, invade Canada?

18 Comments

  1. DirtCrashr, that proves that this was an accidental snub. In an intentional snub, they would have been SECAM (format used in France).

    😉

  2. This is impossible. Obama went to elementary school in Indonesia! What better preparation for international diplomacy could there be?

  3. I think that DVD set is a nice college graduation gift.

    Am I right or am I right?

  4. Invade Canada? Can we give them New England instead, with a side order of Detroit and Chicago? We could trade them for British Columbia, so we’d at least still have something named after Ye Olde Homeland, and it’d give us a direct land route to Alaska, so we can get our hunting guns there without all the hassle of takin’ ’em through Canuckistan.

  5. “What’s next, invade Canada?”

    What’s wrong with that? Some of us remember the War of 1812.

  6. Well … as a life-long Canuck, I don’t want to rain on your parade … but you have a spotty record. Any time we wanted to you to be successful and keep something (eg. Montreal), you bailed. You won the Great Lakes (Ontario and Erie divisions) Regatta … but again you left. Every other time you invaded, you left after burning teeny, weeny villages. We did fight you to a draw several times and won once or twice.

    I don’t know. I think you might want to rethink that. Besides, if you don’t want Detroit, do you think we do? Or Chicago. Of course, the idea of amalgamating BC is a good one. Those residents tend to look south anyway … but they are incredibly left leaning. BC Residents had huge parties when Obamalamadingdong won.

    Frankly, I’m urging you to rethink that one.

    Truth to tell, we’d be a hell of country if we were united, though.

    Regards.

  7. Well the U.S. military in 1812-1814 was a bit on the feeble side compared to…pretty much anyone…(seriously, we were getting pushed around by friggen *Spain* during that time period, and that’s just sad). How ’bout we trade NE and IL for the more conservative parts? Then we can give Southern Cali back to Mexico, free of charge (unless you count crippling budget deficit a ‘charge’).

  8. Sorry, but the US doesn’t get smaller. Just ask the Southern States, who thought that idea might work in the 1860’s. If we want Canada,we aren’t giving anything away for it.

    The best the Canadians can hope for is the deal we gave the Filipinos: after your colonialism under the European yoke, Canada can become an American Protectorate and then have your freedom after several decades. But we will likely want a Naval base, maybe. How about BC for that use?

  9. Thats is awful. I bet the british PM would rather have had the latest season of 24 in a dvd box set to watch on the plane home. I hardly expect the PM has time to watch 25 movies. If I was British I would be very insulted after my countrymen died fighting the war in Iraq, and the least that would be expected is some respect from the president.

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