March 7th 2009
A Botched Repair Job
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were campaign clones when it came to attacking Bush’s foreign policy: Enough of cowboys, it was time for the sophisticated, worldly Dems to get in the saddle and mend relationships Bush had busted from Brussles to Banglador. Last week the prez and his sec of state set about fixing things up.
As he headed back home from Washington, Gordon Brown must have rummaged through his party bag with disappointment.
Because all he got was a set of DVDs. Barack Obama, the leader of the world’s richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films – a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.
Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown. But it didn’t really compare to the thoughtful presents he had brought along with him. (The Daily Mail)
Those presents included a pen holder made of wood from the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet – a gift that “delighted” Obama, a framed commission for HMS Resolute, the ship whose timbers yielded the Oval Office’s deck, and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert,an appropriate gift for a self-proclaimed history buff.
Obama’s daughters received clothes from London’s trendiest shop and six children’s books. Michelle reportedly sent an aide down to the White House gift shop to grab something to reciprocate with. The aide brought back a couple models of Marine One, the White House helicopter, for Brown’s sons.
One American reader apologized to the people of England in a letter to the Times of London:
To the citizens of the United Kingdom.
I apologize to you for the shabby treatment given your Prime Minister by our President.
Please forgive these slights and remember our shared history and our unique alliance.
Nothing similar has been heard emitting from the White House.
Meanwhile, Hillary is gaffing all over Europe. You read about the “Reset” button she gave Russian foreign sec Sergei Lavrov – the one that said “Overcharge.” Then there’s this:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state when she mispronounced her EU counterparts’ names and claimed U.S. democracy was older than Europe’s. …
A veteran politician, Clinton compared the complex European political environment to that of the two-party U.S. system, before adding:
“I have never understood multiparty democracy.
“It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy.”
The remark provoked much headshaking in the parliament of a bloc that likes to trace back its democratic tradition thousands of years to the days of classical Greece.
One working lunch later with EU leaders, Clinton raised more eyebrows when she referred to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who stood beside her, as “High Representative Solano.”
She also dubbed European Commission External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as “Benito.”
Reuters, true to form, gave Clinton an out, blaming the incidents on lack of sleep. Would Condi ever have gotten such kid glove treatment? Would Condi, or George, or Laura, ever had such a gaffe-athon?
Posted in Obama Drama | No Comments yet » | |
Leave a Reply
[The "Comment Box" is WYSIWYG except that you have to double space between paragraphs!
Type it the way you want it to look -- Just remember to double up those line spaces.]
You must be logged in to post a comment.
