Pod Save the Queen! (UPDATED: The Audacity of Arrogance)
President Obama’s gift gaffes continue unabated.
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 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh – apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.
It is believed the Queen already has an iPod, a 6GB silver Mini version she is said to have bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.
UPDATE: Pool reporter Richard Wolf of USA Today says that an Obama aide told him the President also gave the Queen a “rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers“. END UPDATE
The songbook’s not a bad gift, though I have no idea whether the Queen is a fan of Rodgers’ music, or even of American showtunes in general. For a music lover it’s be a great conservation piece. For a Queen? Eh, probably not so much.
The iPod packed with vanity video, on the other hand, is a really rotten gift.
For one, I don’t imagine that the Queen spends very much time looking at herself or watching herself on video. No one who isn’t a raging egotist does (though it might explain why the President and his wife thought it’d be a great gift!).
Also, it’s no real secret that the Queen can get all the video of her various trips around the world pretty much any time she wants. She has an entire media company called the BBC, which she technically owns, able to provide her all the pictures and videos she could ever want.
If they really wanted to commemorate her visit to Virginia, they could have found some old and important relics from the area, perhaps even ones that had special significance to the original settlers who were, you know, British. The Queen is said to be quite a horse enthusiast and I’m sure that the creative minds in the White House could have worked from that. But that would have required more than a trip to Best Buy and some shopping around eBay.
If I worked in the White House, I’d be praying that when the Secret Santa hat gets passed around, the Obamas don’t draw my name.
UPDATE: Well, of course he threw some of his speeches on there for the Queen. How could he possibly do anything else?
She lived through the Blitz. She met Winston Churchill. She actually heard the speeches that rallied the good people of the world against the vilest evil as they were given.
You know what won’t impress her at all? Hopeandchange.
(Thanks to marybel in the comments)
Other Posts of Interest:
- Yet Another Tax Cheat in the Obama Administration
- Republicans Find their Courage, Unanimously Vote Against the Democratic Vote-Buying Bill
- Tune in Tomorrow When President Obama Reveals that He Dances “Like One Of Those Spazzy Epileptics”
Category: Alliances and Allies, President Barack Obama
It gets worse. The iPod was also loaded with show tunes and, more importantly, pics and speeches by the Narcissist-in-Chief. Bet the queen can't wait to see and hear THAT. Tapper has it, as does Allah at HotAir.
You're kidding me. He loaded it up with his own speeches??
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Yet I see no griping about the fact that the sleazeball, cheapo billionairess Queen gave the President of the United States a SIGNED PICTURE OF HERSELF as a gift!
I'll take the video iPod anyday.
I'm sure you would. But which is the more rare gift? I, for one, would find it a hell of a lot easier to get an iPod than I would a signed photograph of the Queen of England. You can't just pick one of those up at any old Sam's Club.
The thing is, gift-giving isn't about value, but thoughtfulness and respect. There is diplomatic protocol involled (you know, diplomacy like the President said would be just great when he took over?). It's obvious that the Obamas were neither thoughtful nor respectful in their gift to the Queen.
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