Gift Imbalance

Imagine if it had have been Bush:

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. The Prime Minister gave him an ornamental desk pen-holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President. The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office. And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In return, America’s head of state gave the Prime Minister 25 DVDs of classic American movies.

Via Andrew Bolt

Jules Crittenden offers some thoughts on the reasoning behing the gift:

Here’s a Brit who posits “Lady Macbeth” was behind the Obamas’ slighting of America’s staunchest ally. UK Telegraph again. That’s higher praise than Michelle deserves. His evidence goes back to her Princeton days, but he hit the mark before he got to that part: They did it because they could. In the most juvenile way possible, they wanted to show they’re in charge, things are different, they have other priorities, and besides, Britain needs to be punished for its Bush enablance. Either that or neither of them are really that bright.

Another thought. Sadder. Maybe just ill-bred.*

The Obama administration seems a little gaffe prone when it comes to the giving of gifts:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in greeting Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, presented him with a red plastic button emblazoned with the English word “reset” and the Russian word “peregruzka.”

The gift was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to “press the reset button” on their relationship.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”

“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.

Update: