Where's the Protocol Office??

Coramoor · #1 03-09-2009, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starang21

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.

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

starang21 · #2 03-09-2009, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coramoor

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.

DrPhil · #3 03-09-2009, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starang21

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.

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.

MysticCat · #4 03-09-2009, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coramoor

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

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.

wrigley · #5 03-09-2009, 03:33 PM

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.

Coramoor · #6 03-09-2009, 04:26 PM

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

AKA_Monet · #7 03-09-2009, 07:01 PM

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...

UGAalum94 · #8 03-09-2009, 07:18 PM

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.

KSigkid · #9 03-09-2009, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

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...

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.

moe.ron · #10 03-09-2009, 09:38 PM

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.

deepimpact2 · #11 03-09-2009, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrigley

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.

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

deepimpact2 · #12 03-09-2009, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MysticCat

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

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