Buckingham Palace: Obama Heats up the Charm to Undo His Previous Rudeness to UK Prime Minister: Update: Obama Gift Gaffe
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 1, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
Queen Elizabeth meets with the Obamas during G20 summit
Pres. Obama did some artful tap dancing and pulled out the good ol’ fashioned Chicago charm to erase the embarrassing snub he committed a few weeks ago with Prime Minister Brown during his US visit. So far, no big gaffes in front of the Queen (a sigh of relief).
REGRETTABLE RETRACTION AFTER 30 MINUTES: I wrote the above paragraph about no “Obama Gaffes” waaay too soon. Another cow patty stepped in… This just reported:
Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 visit to the United States. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed photograph of herself – apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.
The Queen already has an iPod, a 6GB silver Mini version she bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.
But hey, an iPod is a much better gift than a White House snow globe from the WH gift shop, which is what I would have bet a fiver on if someone had approached me on it. Or, maybe a cheesy red button gizmo with “Redistribution of Wealth” misspelled.
More updates on the POTUS palace visit and iPod blunder with the Queen below:
Michelle Malkin: Dohbama strikes again, disses U.K. Updated: Will the Queen re-gift the iPod?
DPGI – the aftermath: Obama: Dissing the UK, again
Fire Andrea Mitchell!: Obama – the April fool – Disses the United Kingdom! – Gives the Queen an IPOD!
Gateway Pundit: Royal Narcissist!… Obama Uploaded HIS SPEECHES To Queen’s iPod
Clay Waters, Times Watch: Times Ignores Obama’s Gauche Gifts to the Queen and Gordon Brown
FromThePen.com: The Obamas Offend The U.K.
Toby Harnden, Telegraph.co.uk: Barack Obama’s gift for the Queen: an iPod, your Majesty
Pirates! Man Your Women!: Maybe They Need to Hire Someone to Educate the Obamas Regarding Foreign Protocol
Stop the ACLU: Obama Gives Queen An Ipod. Seriously? Updated With Bush’s Gift
Jim Blazsik: Obama-rama in Europe! The President who keeps on giving – 12 teleprompters
Michelle Malkin: Seriously: “Send in the Clowns” on Queenzbop playlist
Jane Q. Republican: The Audacity Of Hope
Pundit & Pundette: Obama put his speeches on Queen’s iPod
Hot Air: Obama gets a D-Day celebration invite for one WWII vet …
Sorry for the break in thought. Back to the previous Chicago tap-dancing and charm report:
From McClatchy Newspapers, posted by Miami Herald:
Obama turns on charm to smooth ruffled British feathers
By STEVEN THOMMA
McClatchy NewspapersLONDON — With a salute, a smile and maybe just a little sucking up, President Barack Obama worked hard Wednesday to make up for any diplomatic rift he may have caused several weeks ago in the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
“I am very pleased to be in London, especially with weather of the sort we’re seeing today,” Obama said during a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as rare sunlight shone through the windows.
“Both of us greatly value the special relationship between our nations. The United States and the United Kingdom have stood together through thick and thin, through war and peace, through hard times and prosperity, and we’ve always emerged stronger by standing together.
“So I’m pleased that my first meeting overseas as president is with Gordon Brown, just as I was pleased to host him in Washington shortly after taking office. And I know that we both believe that the relationship between our two countries is more than just an alliance of interests; it’s a kinship of ideals and it must be constantly renewed.”
Maybe that calmed troubled waters here.
Obama set off a brouhaha in the British press when he was seen as dissing Brown during the prime minister’s visit to Washington last month.
Exchanging gifts as a diplomatic tradition, Brown gave Obama an ornate penholder made from the timber of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet. The Gannet was the sister ship of the HMS Resolute, the one whose wood was used to make the president’s desk in the White House, given by Queen Victoria as a gift.
In return, Obama gave Brown a gift set of 25 U.S. movies on DVD.
“About as exciting as a pair of socks,” the London Daily Mail cracked.
Even worse, the DVDs didn’t work on British players.
“The Obama administration has already succeeded in offending America’s closest ally, Great Britain,” added Nile Gardiner, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy-research center in Washington, and a former adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.“There’s a certain amount of public-relations making up to do there,” said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research center in Washington
Obama did it with gusto.
“The thing I love about Great Britain is its people, and there is just an extraordinary affinity and kinship that we have,” he said. “We owe so much to England that when you come here there’s that sense of familiarity, as well as difference, that makes it just a special place.”
Showing solidarity, he noted that al-Qaida terrorists have attacked London, as they did the United States. He saluted British troops who are serving alongside U.S. troops.
When the news conference was almost over, Obama realized he’d forgotten something.
“There’s one last thing that I should mention that I love about Great Britain, and that is the queen,” Obama chimed in, remembering that he was to meet Queen Elizabeth II later Wednesday at Buckingham Palace.
“I’m very much looking forward to meeting her for the first time later this evening. And as you might imagine, Michelle has been really thinking that through, because I think in the imagination of people throughout America, I think what the queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that’s very important.”
One thing he wouldn’t do was pick a winner in the World Cup.
“I have had enough trouble back home picking my brackets for the college basketball tournament that’s taking place there, called March Madness,” he said. “The last thing I’m going to do is wade into European football. That would be a mistake. I didn’t get a briefing on that, but I sense that would be a mistake.”
If the crowds outside were any indication, Obama needn’t have worried too much about his standing.
“We were in our hotel around the corner when we heard this morning Obama was going to be here and we thought, ‘Wow, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance,’” said Jill Pearce, a well-dressed retiree from Wiltshire. She’s an Obama fan, she said, because of “his honesty, his empathy.” Obama is “brilliant, the complete opposite of George Bush,” added her husband, Roy.
Chelsey Hames, a 21-year-old college student from London with an Obama button on her backpack, said she’d stayed up all night watching the U.S. election coverage in November and hoped to move to America after she graduated next year.
“A lot of British people find Gordon Brown pretty lame,” Hames said. “He’s not half as cool as Obama.”
Pres. Obama: 'Hey, the Brits think I'm cooler than PM Brown!'
Here’s an interesting comment that was submitted by “William” on Toby Harnden’s Telegraph.co.uk post, titled “Barack Obama’s gift for the Queen: an iPod, your Majesty“:
The US president is a dreadful cur, with no appreciation for history or former relationships in the world. Even the dumb American people [will] grow to detest the very mention of his name. It will take a little while, however, because they have been so dumbed down by the educational system here.
“Dreadful cur.” Brilliant. Think I’ll steal that one. And the “dumb American people” observation is rather indicative that Obama is NOT as beloved across the pond as the US mainstream media would love for us to believe.
One Final Update: What, pray tell, did that Texan hick George W. Bush give the Queen as a gift? From Stop the ACLU:
What did the George and Laura Bush give to the Queen when she visited in 2007? Commenter Eric Blair has located this list a Raymond P. Martinez hosts Ask the White House
President and Mrs. Bush gave Her Majesty a bronze statuette “High Desert Princess” with a personal inscription on the bottom of the base. It is a replica of the original life size statue that is located in front of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Ft. Worth, Texas.
President and Mrs. Bush gave The Prince Philip an exclusive sterling silver eagle box by Tiffany & Co. with personal inscription on the inside lid.
President and Mrs. Bush gave Their Majesties a leather presentation box filled with a collection of documents from the National Archives. One of the items was a copy of an original letter from President Roosevelt to her father, King George, written in 1938. There were also photos from previous royal visits and a DVD of the footage from the Queen’s visit to the United States when she was Princess Elizabeth in 1951.
Yeah, Pres. Obama is cool, man. Real cool. Icy cool. Like Ice Breaker minty-fresh gum. So much cooler than Bush.
Bleah.
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Obama is an embarrassment who has no concept of protocol or being a representative of his country. An iPod, for crying out loud?
And then the White House tried to put a positive spin on it, saying that the Queen had “asked” for the iPod. How in the world did that request be made known? Did she call up Rahm Emauel and say, “Please be sure that when Pres. Obama comes to the G20, that the gift he give to me be an iPod, eventhough I already have one?” Ridiculous. Whoever is giving Obama advice on protocol should be fired.
And the bowing at the waist to the king of Saudi Arabia was a huge, grave mistake, but no one on the evening news is talking about it. Remember when Bush Sr. went to Australia years ago, and was flashing the “V” sign for “Victory” (or maybe it was for “peace,” can’t remember) to the Aussies? He didn’t know that was the equivalent to flashing “the bird” and he really was burned in the media for it. Aussies were all angry at it, and even though Bush apologized for it, the media wouldn’t let it rest that he “flipped off” the Aussies.
But bowing to a king, I think, is a far more dangerous show of weakness on the part of Obama. He is showing subservience, showing that he believes America is not strong, that he is not an equal to the Saudi king. The MSM is not commenting on this, ignoring it.
At least Bush looked more like a bullying lout when he “V-signed” the Aussies rather than the contrite pansy Obama is looking like. If it’s MY commander in chief, I’ll take the bully over the weak little pansy any day.