Where's the Protocol Office??
 

This is how we treat our main ally???

Obama's Gifts To Brown Irk British Media

London aghast at President Obama over gifts given to Prime Minister Brown

President Obama Raids His DVD Collection For British Prime Minister

Seriously, exactly HOW on earth did the Protocol Office let this happen?

LMAO

This is soooo not an issue.

I agree Sen. Sounds like the British media, not the British people or government have their panties in a twist. :rolleyes:

Their self impotence is underwhelming. :cool::D:eek:

Some new aide in the office made a mistake or dropped the ball on it. I don't think it's a big deal, and I don't think Britain's going to nuke us over it.

Now, if any of the DVDs were Pauly Shore movies...well, then I could see the problem.

^^^ lol x2

Also, maybe it's just me, but perhaps they got the DVDs because the guy actually likes DVDs.

I know when I (used to) do various public speaking gigs, if the folks couldn't pay me, they knew what kinds of gifts made me happy, even though they might seem to be wack to the casual observer.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-...rted-u-s-media

It is well understood that visiting diplomatic delegations come bearing gifts and gift giving is returned in like fashion by the host country. It is an ages old human practice in diplomacy after all. Usually the gifts are valuable, representative of the products of the nations involved, or at least symbolic of the history of those nations.

For his part, PM Brown gave two symbolic gifts and one that expressed national pride. Brown came bearing a pen holder carved from the timbers of the sister ship of that which gave the wood to create the famous "Resolute Desk," the desk that has been in America's charge since 1880. He also gave Obama the framed commission for that famous ship, the HMS Resolute. His third gift was a seven-volume biography of one of England's greatest leaders, Winston Churchill.

So, what did President Obama give the British PM? 25 movies on DVD. Yeah, that's it. Brown gives a symbolic gift like the pen holder fashioned from a famous British warship and Obama responds by sending a staffer to WalMart to pick up a few quick movies.

How thoughtful. Or not.

And I'm not the only one to scoff at this thoughtless gift. The entire British press is up in arms. Many in Britain are seeing this as entirely gauche and indicative of the low esteem in which the Obama's hold England.

Worse, no one is 100% sure that Obama was smart enough to know that DVDs made in America don't play on European DVD players. American DVDs are created in the "Region One" format while those in Europe play in "Region Two" format. A U.S. DVD just won't play on a machine made for the English market.

Not to be out done in tastelessness by her husband, Michelle got into the act, too. Mrs. Brown came bearing two outfits for the Obama girls from Topshop, one of Britain's trendiest and expensive women's wear retail outlets.

In return, Michelle apparently had a staffer run down to the White House gift shop and grab two toy Marine One helicopter models for the Brown's boys.

Class all the way, huh?

All of this is on top of the snub of the Brits that Obama tossed off immediately upon entering office. One of his first official acts was to summarily return to the Brits the generous gift of the most famous bust of Winston Churchill that has sat in the Oval Office since the attacks on 9/11.

This threw British diplomats into a tizzy really blindsiding them. Even when they reiterated that Obama could keep the generous gift to the American people, he rejected it without comment leaving the Brits at a loss for words.

Now, I thought that Obama was going to improve our relations with "the world" once he took office? So far, all he's done is tell our enemies he's their friend and carelessly wave off our actual friends.

And, as I mentioned at the top, the U.S. Old Media has been ignoring this story.

Imagine that?








i wonder if bill has some kenny g or steve bolton cassette tapes that he got from foreign dignitaries. and i wonder if they're playing at the clinton library or whatever it's called.

I think the DVD set was a silly gift. But here's the part of the article that is dumb with a possible political-opinion spin.

Worse, no one is 100% sure that Obama was smart enough to know that DVDs made in America don't play on European DVD players.

"Smart" enough? Most people don't know about Region 1 versus Region 2. Obama's team of whatevers should research and put a lot of thought into the gifts. Maybe they dropped the ball on a number of levels but not because they aren't "smart" enough.

yea, that was dumb. i had no idea, either.

region 1 in america, region 2 in britain

all made in japan!

:laugh:

personnally, i think a DVD collection of Benny Hill would be a wonderful gift.

region 2 of course.

Even that's not so silly, since most people can play DVDs from other countries, either on their computers or newer DVD players. If I can play a British DVD, I imagine the British PM has access to the technology to play American DVDs.

Why is this an issue?

ZOMG THE OBAMAS ARE ROOOOOD AND CRAZY! HYSTERIA! HYSTERIA!

Welp this is the apolitical political commentary all over again. Everything is under a microscope and scrutinized.

For those of you who are just joining us, welcome to politics.

The Obamas didn't drop the ball, the Protocol Office did.

Prior to the election, a lot of people were posting that we were a laughing stock around the world, and need to vote for President Obama. This was a social gaffe that could have been stopped, and didn't help our image.

Plus that statement assumes that the President would have a hand in choosing the gift. I'm guessing he has more pressing things on his plate.

Maybe there should just be a "Dignitary Gift Registry" like there is for weddings. You can check online and say "Well, someone already bought Putin the collector's edition of 'Saturday Night Fever.' Maybe I should go for the teapot."

Oh cmon now. We are all children of the internet age! The regional stuff has been mentioned a million times over the past decade in articles and commercials about piracy laws. Hell any kid knows it because they can't buy a game from abroad and play it in their home system unless it's modded.

It's the same as the people that come to Europe and plug their 110 appliance into a 240v outlet. ZAP! It is labeled EVERYWHERE not to do it, everyone that is even slightly worldly knows it.

This is just showing how little BO gives thought to one of our strongest allies.

I would be absolutely embarrassed if I was BO. He knows no shame. He is totally delusional and probably doesn't even understand why it has pissed people off.

If this is just another case of BO's picked subordinates failing...well, what is this, the 20th example of total incompetence in his staff?

Whether or not the average person would know the difference between American and U.K. media, the office of POTUS should - or they should have found someone who did. It's not a BIG deal, but part of the job is diplomacy, and part of diplomacy is doing the "right" thing. A ball was dropped, but let us hope it is the last one. Perhaps the Protocol Office head honcho couldn't take his/her job because of unpaid back taxes . . . :rolleyes: At any rate, those who found Bush's social faux pas troubling should also be concerned about this - as long as it never happens again, I give Obama a by. But it should be issue, since one reason stated by those who elected Obama was they wanted the U.S.A. to regain the good will of the world once again. Part of that is relatively meaningless stuff like this. Gifts tell the receipient what you think of him/her/it - and the U.K. is in a tizzy because they believe Obama's gifts say he doesn't think very much of them.

what a ridiculous post. it was a mistake. there's a learning curve. he's been in office for 2 months. how petty and uninformed.

Yeah, I doubt it's going to happen again.

What is petty and uninformed is giving the British PM a box set of Bond DVDs from the wrong region.

so someone made a mistake. and? you're blowing this out of proportion. the levity of THIS situation as compared to the gaffes that bush has done pale in comparison.

Eh...apparently what some deem "common knowledge" simply is not. They should've researched it more, I already said that.

I lack the passion for this that you apparently have. :)

He may work for TMZ. :)

No offense to Harvey Levin who I have always adored. :)

And let's not get into a Bush-Obama comparison. Obama has plenty of time to mess up as much if not more than Bush. I would hate for you folks to have to eat your words.

Just one question: Does anyone actually know that the DVDs were for the wrong region? I haven't seen that in any credible news report. All I've seen is comments in pieces like the one starang quoted where they say things like "It's worth noting that American DVDs won't play in European DVD players." That may be worth noting, but that doesn't mean that the DVDs were, in fact, not compatible with European players, only that the writer is assuming that they were not.

I agree that it was a major gaffe by the Protocol Office (even though Brown is not a head of state). But there sure seems to be a whiff of truthiness about some of the more outraged reports.

ETA: Maybe the Protocol Office was just following precedent. According to The Daily Mail, Bush gave Brown a fur-trimmed bomber jacket.

I'd rather have President Obama give cheap gifts than spend a large amount of money for them in a time when there's the debt outstanding to think about.

I would rather blow things out of proportion and think the man is wrong no matter what he does. haha

Hayle, they could have just given PM Brown and his family some Obama campaign T-shirts/posters/memorabilia, which actually fetches quite a bit of money these days... LOL... At least Obama has a stash of that crap laying around there somewhere. Or at least the stuh is bootlegged somewhere... Good ole American Capitalism at its best! J/K... or not... :rolleyes:

I don't know that this is going to really end up meaning anything about our relationship with Great Britain, but there were other issues about the visit that weren't done at the typical level. Apparently, there's an expectation of a certain level of joint press conference that didn't happen either. If you look at the visit in it's totality, Obama didn't make as big a deal about Brown's visit as is typical.

I suspect that you don't get to be PM by being really thin skinned, but if you look at the discrepancy in the gift exchange and level of pomp, if I were a member of the British public, I might think Obama didn't act right.

How much does that matter? I don't know, but I know there were people at the time of the election for whom what the rest of the world thought about us mattered. Sure, they were concerned about more meaningful foreign policy issues than gift exchanges, but can you really afford to blow off symbolic interpersonal stuff? It ought to be a gimme.

Kim Jong Il would've loved that gift.

Only if it included Team America.

Seriously though, with all of the crap going on in the world, and things world leaders need to deal with, some bullshit little gift should be the least of our concerns.

Of course, the Brits are so gossip obsessed and love a "scandal".

Never herd of multi-region DVD players?

:) I guess the author of that article isn't "smart enough" to have heard of that.

I think I have but had no idea what that meant. :p

So that makes the issue just about the DVDs as gifts.

I read somewhere that it was requested from AFI, which, in that case, at least the AFI Top 25 are populated by great movies. Of course, including "The Big Lebowski" would also be a good idea, but far be it from me to give advice to the President.

I think the Big Lebowski should be a required gift to all visiting head of states, along with Dude, Where's My Car and Kingpin.

Well, you got 2 out of 3 right.

I'm thinking you disagree with Dude, Where's My Car?

It's a classic man. Ok, what if I changed that movie with Half Baked?

I would be ok with that trade.

Exactly. If he had given an extravagant gift, then people would have been shouting, screaming, hissing, and foaming at the mouth about THAT.

Interesting. Wonder why we never really heard much about that?

You're right. He probably doesn't understand why it has pissed people off because he mistakenly thinks people have their minds on more important things.


With respect to the part of that article about First Lady Michelle giving the boys the helicopters, I fail to see the issue with that. Little boys tend to like those types of things. They wouldn't necessarily want clothes as a gift.

Right, I was thinking the same thing. What else would be an appropriate gift for little boys? I actually think it's a little weird that they gave Sasha and Malia clothes. One of the articles I read on this actually had a comment from a reader adding, "A gift of clothes was probably seen as tacky by the Americans, so we're not ones to talk," or something to that effect.

I think the DVD gift would've been thoughtful if Brown was a movie buff. But by all accounts I've read so far, he's not. I do think people have radically underestimated how much that collection probably cost. I don't know why people think it would've been purchased for $19.95 at Wal-Mart. Last time I looked, Wal-Mart didn't carry Citizen Kane.

ETA: I'm more concerned that Obama returned the gift of the Churchill bust given to Bush by Tony Blair following 9/11. How tacky to give back any gift, particularly one from a foreign leader given as a symbol of solidarity!