[DELETED BY AUTHOR]
6 Mar
Obama’s Official Gift to British PM Brown: A Box of DVD’s
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Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 7:41 am | 13 views
Stats
He could have at least sprung for the Blu-Ray, but I guess he was broke after sinking all his dough into a swing set
Frankly, it sounds like some Protocol Officer at State screwed up, was left out of the loop, or was ignored.
Maybe Obama should fire his Secretary of State.
This is embarrassing for our nation. Obama just insulted our staunchest ally in the world. How rude. Obama’s actions are worse diplomacy than what Bush did. At least Bush had reasons to tell France and Germany to take a leap. They were being bribed. But, what did Brittan do to deserve this? Obama is clueless.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
What a complete embarrassment.
Nothing to worry about here. I’m sure Hussein will have some especially nice stuff for our real allies, like Putin and Amahdinejhad!
He’s gifting junk left over from his campaign raffles. Hope he removed the ticket.
Interesting to see what future gifts the Obama’s receive from future dignataries……various editions of Emily Post books.
You’d think he would be nicer to a fellow socialist.
Did you see Baldilocks’ speculation on this: Vengeance is His
To add to the kick in the pants, imagine that the Administration that screwed this up so badly gave PM Brown US zone 1 dvds that are not playable in Great Britain or Europe. Imagine that these DVDs aren’t worth the packaging they’re enclosed in?
I read somewhere that Gordon Brown has a vision problem, partly due to an accident as a teenager. When reading the font has to be larger to compensate for his poor vision.
He apparently isn’t a fan of video’s to top it off. What a goofy gift. It almost seems like a joke.
Yes, Gordon Brown is completely blind in one eye and has some level of eyesight loss in the other due to a Rugby injury (detached retina).
Maybe you should file this under continuing Bush’s polices.
Sniff….
Sniff…. Sniff….
A sweet aroma…..with a subtle hint of cinnamony smoothness….
Oh, how I love the scent of toasted postings on a beautiful Friday afternoon.
@Fit fit: Hmmm….which would I prefer: a cool leather bomber’s jacket or a set of dvds found at your local Best Buys….?
A mix tape would have been better.
I hope Team Obama at least had the sense to make sure the DVDs were in PAL format, and not NTSC like we use here in the states. I am pretty sure Britain uses the PAL standard. Just in case, PM Brown, you can go to videohelp.com and probably find a region hack for your DVD Player, assuming you even have one.
@blast:
“Custom-made”? So it wasn’t purchased at Best Buy? What a rip-off! It doesn’t even include a single James Bond movie….where’s Raider’s of the Lost Ark?! Blazzing Saddles? Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery? Mr. Bean’s Holiday? What a rip-off!!!
@Wordsmith:
I’m sorta wondering why “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, “”Hallelujah Trail”, and “Paint Your Wagon” were excluded.
The Brits do use PAL. And yes, you can hack the region but you can’t hack NTSC to PAL. Given the obvious cluelessness of the Obama team, I wouldn’t doubt that Brown got a region 1 NTSC set.
Mentally unfit, would it kill you not to ejaculate your BDS
onto a thread? Apparently yes.
The obomination clearly is in over his head. He can’t even get
gift giving to an ally right.
I guess we should be thankful he didn’t give him some small print
books to read.
Ohhhhhhh Fitty,
Daunt you rememba da Bushie is no longa Presadentee.
This is a reflection of the thinness of his staff (in terms of competence, not necessarily numbers). Obviously Obama himself should be busy with stuff other than thinking up what would make a nice, appropriate gift for Gordon Brown; but he should be able to delegate this to someone who can come up with something decent (or more likely delegate to someone else, and so on). But either he doesn’t have anyone like that, or he didn’t delegate appropriately. Lack of management experience is showing. The gaffe with Clinton’s button is similar – somewhere, someone has enough knowledge of Russian to avoid that mistake. But in this organization, that person wasn’t found or consulted.
A White House special request to the AFI to make a custom boxed set of American classic movies is somehow a poor gift?
It doesn’t stack up all that well in comparison to the British offering. Now maybe this is just failure to communicate; maybe nobody told Obama or his staff that the Brits would be bringing hand-wrought artifacts, redolent with historical import and antiquity. In that case the failure moves from ‘being tone deaf’ to ‘failure to prepare and communicate’. Does changing the flavor of fail make you feel better?
@bbartlog: A blogger at the British Telegraph speculated the lame gift was the work of “Lady Macbeth” Michelle:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/03/05/was_lady_macbeth_behind_barack_obamas_snub_of_gordon_brown
Timothy, how kind of you to respond to Fit’s link to a British gossip columnist who manages to depict everyone with all the grace of a banshee…. LOL
Nice choice of “documentation”, Fit.
No one is assuming that Brown liked the bomber jacket with the Presidential logo and his name embroidered on it. (I mentioned he didn’t myself) But then, the jacket is great quality, and the Presidential logo makes it a keepsake.
Ms. Brown liked it… but stick up the butt Brown didn’t. However I still believe that duplicating such a personal and unique gift (he gave one to Blair) is still a better choice than a DVD collection which has nothing personal to it but the wrapping…. things he could purchase himself online at Amazon.
I heard the DVD’s were all Jerry Lewis movies, thought that Brown was French.
Geez, they left out the best movies. What about:
Behind the Green Door
Taboo, Taboo II through infinity
Debbie Does Dallas
Deep Throat
Not to mention:
The Ten Commandments
Good Times at Ridgemont High
Eating Raul
Beaches
Godfather Part II
*Note to editors: These movies do not necessarily reflect the serious opinions of the poster.
Here’s 25 DVD’s Brown should send to Obama…
Blue Hawaii
Born Free
Braveheart
Churchill:The Hollywood Years
Crash
Flash Gordon
From Russia with Love
Great Expectations
He’s Just Not That Into You
Help!
Highlander
Hoffa
Misery
Mr. Bean
Mrs.Brown
No Country For Old Men
Out of Africa
Porkys
Reds
Robin Hood
The Birth of a Nation
The Blair Witch Project
The Patriot
The Untouchables
Wall Street
Anyone who has been around kids knows kids like to show off ‘special stuff to their buddies’ so..
Imagine the excitement of the two Obama girls opening their gifts from Prime Minister & Mrs Brown, designer dresses with matching jewelry from the UK. store TopShop before a branch opens in the USA. Imagine the excitement of the Obama girls getting a set of childrens books by a UK writer before they are released to bookstores in the USA.
Then Imagine the disappointment of the Brown’s two boys when they open their gifts from President & First Lady Obama, two plastic made in China ‘Marine One’ helicopter toys any person visiting or going on line could purchase from the White House Gift store for $15 each.
Not only were the Obama’s thoughtless, I think they were cruel to the Brown’s kids.
.
GaffaUK #28
In your list of 25 DVD’s Brown should send to Obama… I’d like to add “Dumb & Dumber”
.
Here’s the culprit, another Chicago crony. Ms. Rogers and Michelle-my-belle were the ones who were supposed to make this work. Fine job they did. (rolls eyes)
Wow, I’m practically speechless to Obama and his teams mindless blunderings. Someone should send him the movie “clue” cause he is def. In need of one.
Remember the DVD’s that Prime Minister Brown received?
They don’t work in Britain.
Priceless.