Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: roo_ster on March 06, 2009, 02:27:51 PM
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Giving a Bronx cheer to the Brits in DC while giving vile regimes like Iran a tongue bath.
Way to go, BHO.
Oh, do read the story about the Resolute:
http://www.metafilter.com/78629/RESOLUTE
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWE5MTg4YTc2N2IxZjMzOWZmNTk5ZmVjNzcwY2U4ODI=
He's Just Not That Into the Special Relationship [Mark Hemingway]
It's the top story in our web-briefing but, if you haven't heard, the President gave U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown a gift of 25 DVDs of classic American films. Given enough exposure, no doubt Brown will soon develop a taste for the strange and provincial American cultural expression known as "cinema." I hear it's finally starting to catch on abroad. Now here are the gifts Brown gave Obama:
Mr Brown’s gifts included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President.
Mr Obama was so delighted he has already put it in pride of place in the Oval Office on the Resolute desk which was carved from timbers of Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute.
Another treasure given to the U.S. President was the framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans and given to Queen Victoria.
Finally, Mr Brown gave a first edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.
These gifts are even more impressive and thoughtful than these few paragraphs suggest, given the amazing story behind the Resolute and how it is a potent symbol of U.S.-U.K. goodwill. So Brown clearly outclassed Obama in that regard.
But I also love the symbolism of that final gift — Martin Gilbert's classic Churchill biography. If it seemed a bit tone deaf when Obama returned the Churchill bust that had been in the White House, well it now appears that no less a figure than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is subtly sending a message that Obama should better understand the historical importance of one of his country's greatest leaders. Well played.
UPDATE — a reader writes:
It would be funny if the DVDs Mr Obama gave Mr Brown were Region 1 NTSC and therefore not compatible with the UK where DVDs are region 2 and video format is PAL.
I would love to see someone on Fleet Street ask Brown whether the President gave Gordon Brown DVDs that are not playable in England. That could prove amusing.
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That was horrendously un-classy.
But since something that celebrated American values like first editions of Twain or Robert Frost or any of that would not have fit, I guess they figured first editions of Saul Alinsky's book or a rare draft of Das Kapital would not have been well-received?
So...the discount store DVD set, I guess. It's cheap, unthoughtful, and made in China.
Good one, Barack.
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the children's gift exchange was total classless dreckery
Maybe Hillary Clinton should advise them on protocol
Well, what would you buy Gordon Brown? He's not a man known for pleasure - rather as the sort to take an afternoon's summer holiday before heading straight back to work, so it must be hard. But Barack Obama can't have predicted the scornful response of the Daily Mail when he decided to pick Gordon up a few DVDs.
In return for a pen holder carved from the timbers of the sister ship of the one the White House desk is made from and a first edition of a seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, the Mail is appalled that "Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country" gave Brown a box set of 25 DVDs selected by the American Film Institute. These include Raging Bull, Casablanca, Psycho and The Graduate. It is, the Mail says, "a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks".
Yet another example of the British press's apparent mission to feel snubbed by Obama on Gordon Brown's behalf and obsession with the passing of the special relationship with Bush (which was - at best - bittersweet). Was it only yesterday a commentary in the Times bemoaned the supposed injustice of the Browns giving the Obama's daughters Top Shop dresses (with matching necklaces) when all their parents gave the Brown boys were models of the presidential helicopter Marine One? Yes it was.
It's difficult to resist reading political messages into these films. Like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, could Brown have been "a contender ... a somebody" if the US Congress had shown a little more interest in his global New Deal? Like Luke Skywalker on the Millennium Falcon, is Brown's history of support for light-touch financial regulation in the City of London now endangering the mission?
The 25 films also include two from the end of the Great Depression: the Grapes of Wrath (recommended to Obama on this blog a while back) and the Wizard of Oz. Perhaps there is something here. A 1990 paper in the Journal of Political Economy argued it could be read as monetary allegory: in this interpretation the yellow brick road represents the gold standard (a return to which is not US policy).
The set also include three of Obama's five personal favourites, according to his Facebook page: Casablanca, The Godfather and Lawrence of Arabia (omitted are the second Godfather film and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
Obama is, incidentally, really, really pleased with the pen holder and books. The White House even put out a press release saying so. It tells us the president thanked the prime minister and "noted the pen set is being displayed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and the books are in the president's personal study adjoining the Oval Office".
Maybe Brown's office will tweet each time he watches one of the 25. The Mail's full list is here. Please add your own cinematic/political interpretations below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/mar/06/obama-dvd-brown
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A 1990 paper in the Journal of Political Economy argued it could be read as monetary allegory: in this interpretation the yellow brick road represents the gold standard (a return to which is not US policy).
Argued!? ARGUED!?
The book WAS A FREAKING POLITICAL ALLEGORY!
Silver (not ruby) slippers: silver standard
Yellow Brick Road: gold standard
Emerald City: Washington DC
Scarecrow: Farmers
Tin Man: Industry Workers
Cowardly Lion: William Jennings Bryan, I think
GAH! Don't people teach anything in school?
Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
Even lowly wiki has something about it.
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Have to wonder if they were at least Blu-Ray Criterion Collection in a special casing or something, or just a halfassed box set.
I'm not sure the latter would surprise me, really. It is still not a one-of-a-kind Gift of State. It's something anyone can pick up at Costco with a hotdog.
Amateur Hour, indeed...
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But costco would have NTSC, region 1s
did he give a completely unusable set?
England is PAL, region 2 encoded DVDs
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Epically tacky. Way to go, asshat. :mad:
About the only good to come of this, would be Barry pissing off Gordon enough that they didn't have time to get chummy and plan the Global New Deal. Or whatever other kind of one world devilry they had planned.
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Which classic American films?
A Clockwork Orange would be cool. =D
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Which classic American films?
A Clockwork Orange would be cool. =D
:lol:
I was thinking that a replica Revolutionary War rifled musket would have been more thoughtful than DVD's. Maybe he could have presented him with a nicely framed copy of the Declaration of Independence. How about a sterling silver plate of the Boston Massacre. :D
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- “2001: A Space Odyssey”
- “Casablanca”
- “Chinatown”
- “Citizen Kane”
- “City Lights”
- “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”
- “It’s a Wonderful Life”
- “Lawrence of Arabia”
- “On the Waterfront”
- “Psycho”
- “Raging Bull”
- “Schindler’s List”
- “Singin’ in the Rain”
- “Some Like It Hot”
- “Star Wars: Episode IV”
- “Sunset Boulevard”
- “The General”
- “The Godfather”
- “The Graduate”
- “The Grapes of Wrath”
- “The Searchers”
- “The Wizard of Oz”
- “To Kill a Mockingbird”
- “Vertigo”
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I was thinking that a replica Revolutionary War rifled musket would have been more thoughtful than DVD's.
We could give them back one of the Brown Bess muskets we stole from them during that war, but they'd just go throw it in the English Channel. =)
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I figured it wouldn't be a boxed set of Firefly.....
"Hey, Rahm wadda we got in da prize closet for our guest today ??"
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Maybe a Johnny Horton album, with the Battle of New Orleans?
"Yeah, we ran through the briars, and we ran through the brambles..." =D
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Maybe a Johnny Horton album, with the Battle of New Orleans?
"Yeah, we ran through the briars, and we ran through the brambles..." =D
Are you thinking of Bobby Horton?
http://www.civilwarmusicstore.com/csanew1.html
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Nope.
Johnny Horton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Horton
Might be a bit before your time, I dunno...
The BBC banned the song.
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Are you thinking of Bobby Horton?
http://www.civilwarmusicstore.com/csanew1.html
Nope Johnny Horton. I was at the local Boy scout shop the other day and it was playing on the oldies station. I think I scared the clerks when I started to sing along...... =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edsl_9yTvVw
(edit: G98 beat me to the punch....)
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Nope Johnny Horton. I was at the local Boy scout shop the other day and it was playing on the oldies station. I think I scared the clerks when I started to sing along...... =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edsl_9yTvVw
OK, I've never actually heard it, but my dad (a Bluegrass banjo picker) has told me about it. According to him, it's an old fiddle tune composed at Jackson's inauguration but didn't get words until Mr. Horton did the song.
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Well, BHO is on a digital media kick, it seems.
;)
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=3326
Obama to Meet Queen, Planning Gift of CD Box Set
by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · 14 Comments
(2009-03-06) — When U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Queen Elizabeth II in advance of the G20 economic summit in April, Mr. Obama plans to continue his tradition of giving meaningful gifts to British dignitaries.
When Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House this week, he received from the Obamas a collection of Top 25 American movies on DVD and his sons got toy versions of the president’s Marine One helicopter.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president has also put a lot of thought into what gift to present to Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace.
White House insiders report Mr. Obama has narrowed it down to a CD box set, Queen: The Crown Jewels, or a queen-sized mattress.
At the moment, the music seems more likely, since the image of a bare-armed Michelle Obama, with rippling biceps, carrying the mattress into the palace might detract from the pageantry of the moment.
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Frankly I think it is quite an American gift and a gift indicative of the gifts that the Americans that put him in office understand.
Most of the working class people I know (i.e. my family) do the same thing at Christmas. Spend a whole 10 minutes at Sams Club choosing a cheeeeeezzzeeeeyy boxed DVD set / crappy gift package / gift card at Christmas and expect it to knock their socks off.
Most Americans don't understand quality versus price/quantity. If I bought anyone in my family an ornamental pen holder made from some historic wood, they'd sell it on ebay and use the cash to buy a boxed DVD set.
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Frankly I think it is quite an American gift and a gift indicative of the gifts that the Americans that put him in office understand.
Most of the working class people I know (i.e. my family) do the same thing at Christmas. Spend a whole 10 minutes at Sams Club choosing a cheeeeeezzzeeeeyy boxed DVD set / crappy gift package / gift card at Christmas and expect it to knock their socks off.
Most Americans don't understand quality versus price/quantity. If I bought anyone in my family an ornamental pen holder made from some historic wood, they'd sell it on ebay and use the cash to buy a boxed DVD set.
i don't think thats an american thing. i think thats a thing all around the world. i wouldn't doubt that any kid in a consumer orented country hasn't had the experiance of waking up on christmas morning and opened up the brightly wraped socks (or similar)
this is diffrent. a STATE VISIT. its a bit more complicated then christmas.
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I just had a thought.
Brown's Monarchy just decided that Ted friggin Kennedy deserved an Honorary Knighthood. Maybe Barry wasn't that far off in deliberately snubbing him. :laugh:
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What's that slogan? Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined.
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That's perfect......
Putin/Medvedev comes for a state visit and Obama starts handing out Hooter's T-Shirts......
:O :O :O :O
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So? We're in a recession. We don't have the cash to give out stuff to foreign dignitaries. We just get a cheap DVD set at Sams and give 'em that. :laugh:
It's fiscal responsibility. =D
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Aside from his idiotic policies, I'm just embarrassed by this guy. No class...... =(
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I think obama's future gifts to heads of state would be better chosen by professional diplomats in the US State Department than by a guy who seems to prefer gifts more apropos to the residents of the neighborhoods he used to organize.
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The BBC banned the song.
Huh. Interesting. I started a Johnny Horton radio profile on Pandora a while back. Aside from "Gotta Sink the Bismarck" and other gems, it also played the Brit version of The Battle of New Orleans. Just switched the pronouns about in the lyrics. Sore losers. :lol:
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html
Barack Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown
Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president was facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told.
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.
British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.
But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.
A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".
A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. "I think it's right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn't quite understand the British concerns and didn't get what that was all about."
The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.
"That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they're finding it a hard thing to do everything."
British diplomats insist the visit was a success, with officials getting the chance to develop closer links with Mr Obama's aides. They point out that the president has agreed to meet the prime minister for further one-to-one talks in London later this month, ahead of the G20 summit on April 2.
But they concede that the mood music of the event was at times strained. Mr Brown handed over carefully selected gifts, including a pen holder made from the wood of a warship that helped stamp out the slave trade - a sister ship of the vessel from which timbers were taken to build Mr Obama's Oval Office desk. Mr Obama's gift in return, a collection of Hollywood film DVDs that could have been bought from any high street store, looked like the kind of thing the White House might hand out to the visiting head of a minor African state.
Mr Obama rang Mr Brown as he flew home, in what many suspected was an attempt to make amends.
The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.
The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." The apparent lack of attention to detail by the Obama administration is indicative of what many believe to be Mr Obama's determination to do too much too quickly.
In addition to passing the largest stimulus package and the largest budget in US history, Mr Obama is battling a plummeting stock market, the possible bankruptcy of General Motors, and rising unemployment. He has also begun historic efforts to achieve universal healthcare, overhaul education and begin a green energy revolution all in his first 50 days in office.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that one of Mr Obama's most prominent African American backers, whose endorsement he spent two years cultivating, has told friends that he detects a weakness in Mr Obama's character.
"The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this," the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. "He's underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk." A Democratic strategist, who is friends with several senior White House aides, revealed that the president has regularly appeared worn out and drawn during evening work sessions with senior staff in the West Wing and has been forced to make decisions more quickly than he is comfortable.
He said that on several occasions the president has had to hurry back from eating dinner with his family in the residence and then tucking his daughters in to bed, to conduct urgent government business. Matters are not helped by the pledge to give up smoking.
"People say he looks tired more often than they're used to," the strategist said. "He's still calm, but there have been flashes of irritation when he thinks he's being pushed to make a decision sooner than he wants to make it. He looks like he needs a cigarette."
Mr Obama was teased by the New York Times on Thursday in a front page story which claimed to have detected a greater prevalence of grey hairs since he entered the White House.
The Democratic strategist stressed that Mr Obama's plight was nothing new. "He knew it was going to be tough; he said as much throughout the campaign. But there's a difference between knowing it is going to be tough and facing the sheer relentless pressure of it all."
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Oh, the poor dear.
Suck it up, baby, and drive on.
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If the job is too much for him, he can always quit.
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If the job is too much for him, he can always quit.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Two words "President Biden"
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Biden does have an exceptionally grotesque comb-over to compensate for his incompetence.
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Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.
Hmmm...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=90945
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http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/03/uk-leader-cant.html?csp=34
The movie industry's digital protection schemes have turned President Obama's present for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown into little more than a set of coasters.
British newspapers earlier this month made hay out of the supposedly unequal exchange of gifts between the two leaders during Brown's visit to Washington. Brown gave an ornamental pen holder with an indirect tie to the Oval Office desk — both items were made from the timber of sister ships — and a first-edition set of a seven-volume biography about Winston Churchill.
Obama responded with a DVD set featuring 25 classic American movies. "About as exciting as a pair of socks," declared The Daily Mail.
Now it turns out Brown can't play the discs because of region-specific limitations, The Daily Telegraph reports.
DVD players are coded to limit themselves to material meant for specific geographic areas. The United States and Canada are Region 1. Western and Central Europe are Region 2.
Players sold in one region aren't supposed to play discs sold in another. Had the same sort of protection applied to Brown's gift, Obama would need a special key sold only in Europe to open the Churchill books.
People willing to experiment with hacks can go online to find relatively easy ways around region-coding prohibitions on discs. But a spokesman for the prime minister referred a Telegraph writer to the White House for "technical assistance."
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/5011941/Gordon-Brown-is-frustrated-by-Psycho-in-No-10.html
While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies – including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington.
Tim Walker
Last Updated: 4:31PM GMT 18 Mar 2009
Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.
The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship – or "special partnership", as we are now supposed to call it – by registering a complaint.
A Downing Street spokesman said he was "confident" that any gift Obama gave Brown would have been "well thought through," but referred me to the White House for assistance on the "technical aspects".
A White House spokesman sniggered when I put the story to him and he was still looking into the matter when my deadline came last night.
By the way, when Obama's unlikely gift was disclosed, a reader emailed me to ask if Clueless was among the films. Funnily enough, it was not.
Brown, on the other hand, presented a rather more thoughtful gift to the American President in the form of a penholder carved from the timbers of an anti-slavery ship. The sister ship, in fact, of the one that was broken up and turned into the desk in the Oval Office.
Remember, these guys have they keys to the nukes! :lol:
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You elect a novice, this is what you get. It is the voters fault and Obama had no idea of what being the president really is. The Republicans are at fault too with their choice of McCain. You want a pro, hire a pro. I just hate to see the country suffer more.
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Ironically, people would have put Bush through the wringer for the encoding error as it being "a dumb hick" mistake. Obama is the "cool, blackberry using, technologically hip guy". Of course it's the staff, not the President that does the grunt work, but this is supposed to be a wired staff as well.
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looks like this would be a good time to start the push to get rid of the dmca and make region coding illegal =D
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The problem here is that Obama is right... he should not suck up to Brown, because he will either lose the next election, or be kicked out beforehand.
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Aside from the idiocy of buying the man dvd's that won't play on his home turf, isn't Brown almost completely blind as well?