Republicans, Democrats, & Independents -- Are you ready to rumble????

[Guest]

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[wthepoo]

I do hope that someone on the White House staff verified the region coding to determine that the movies were playable on PM Brown's DVD player.

 

Indeed, wouldn't it be just great if they didn't?

Thanks for this, Ronan!
Wolfgang.

[dh]

Newsweek indicated that in fact the DVDs would not play in Europe. The White House seems to have been unaware that there is a group in the State Department charged with picking official gifts.

--Don

[waywardcats]

Newsweek indicated that in fact the DVDs would not play in Europe. The White House seems to have been unaware that there is a group in the State Department charged with picking official gifts.

--Don

Here is that article.

In the world of international diplomacy, small missteps can cause big problems. When George W. Bush gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a quick shoulder rub—in what he thought was a friendly gesture—he was mercilessly pilloried for weeks. Hillary Clinton's embrace of Suha Arafat dogged her for years. One of the most important tests of a globe-trotting president: picking out just the right gift for your foreign counterpart. Barack Obama is learning this the hard way.

Only a few weeks on the job, Obama created a minor diplo-mess when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to the U.S. for a visit. Obama's historic Oval Office desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford Hayes, is made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. Brown proudly presented Obama with a pencil holder carved from its antislavery sister ship, the HMS Gannet. Classy! Obama lamely reciprocated with a DVD set of Hollywood movies, including "Psycho." When Brown got back home, he discovered they didn't work in his European player. "At a minimum you don't want to give offense," says a former White House official who helped orchestrate foreign visits for a previous president. "That was really phoning it in." (The official, like others quoted here, asked not to be named disparaging a sitting president.) Apparently it was a rookie mistake. According to a person close to the situation, Obama hasn't yet appointed a chief of protocol and his staffers, still unpacking, didn't realize that the State Department has an entire office dedicated to foreign visits.

Ever the quick study, Obama did a little better last week when he welcomed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with a rare original copy of the sheet music for "The Star Spangled Banner." Classy! (Brown, clutching his worthless DVDs, must have been like, "What the …?") But before Obama starts raiding the National Archives whenever a world leader doorsteps the White House, he might take a hint from a few of his predecessors, who had a knack for picking out a little something for the man who has everything.


Tic-Tac-Toe, No Tradebacks

1963: Kennedy to Lemass
Camelot style: No surprise that John and Jackie Kennedy were excellent at picking out gifts. One of the best: the president won over Irish Prime Minister Sean Lemass when he presented the P.M. with a velvet-lined, mahogany box. Inside: a precise replica of Gen. George Washington's ceremonial sword.

1972: Nixon to Brezhnev
Drink and drive: When Richard Nixon traveled to Moscow to sign an arms treaty, Leonid Brezhnev gave him a liquor set. Through aides, the Soviet leader hinted he expected something a whole lot nicer in return: a new Cadillac El Dorado. (Communists, gotta love 'em.) Nixon handed over the keys.

1996: Clinton to Chirac
C'est merveilleux: The French president marveled at Clinton's apparent ability to speak without notes. He hadn't heard of a teleprompter. When Jacques Chirac paid a visit to Washington, Clinton gave him one.

2006: Bush to Koizumi
Stuck on you: Dubya and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi were fast friends. Bush took Koizumi, an Elvis nut, to Graceland and gave him a jukebox with the King's hits. Koizumi had another weakness: "Juicy Fruit!" he cried when he spotted a pack of the delicious gum on Marine One. Bush gave him a case.

2009: Obama to Brown
What, no popcorn? The president didn't exactly endear himself to the Brits with his box set of DVDs, something the P.M. could have gotten at his local Blockbuster. The London press called it an insult, especially since Brown took obvious care in selecting a gift. Along with the pencil holder, he gave Obama a multivolume biography of Winston Churchill.

[Jill]

As our President, in real life, currently, is in Iraq, someone with an imagination quite a bit more expansive and probably more income-generating than my own, has him, in Comic Book Land, in the guise of his alter ego, Barack the Barbarian, spending most of his time, instead,  in his fictional kingdom of Kickassistan – that is, when he isn’t elsewhere, doing good and saving the world, of course.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1168213/Barack-Barbarian-takes-scantily-clad-nemesis-Sarah-Palin-new-comic-superhero-role.html

Some people, I suppose, won’t find a whole lot that’s amusing either in the article or in the pictures I’ve selected to post, here.  But both as one who grew up when comic books were part of almost every kid's reading repertoire and also as someone who still has terrific hopes and continuing respect and admiration for Obama, when I saw this, this morning, I, personally,  got a giant kick out of it.   I trust and hope that others, including the First Family, will, as well.

EDIT: A smile for your comment, Diane.

[Diane R]

Why, I do believe that's Ann Coulter he's smiting on the cover!   

--Diane.

[Jill]

I’m thinking there’s a chance that maybe only people who like Obama** are going to like this story of his women and his dog going to visit little kids at a Children’s Hospital in D.C.  So, that’s why I’m posting this here, for want of a better place.  I think it’s kind of cute, and I especially love that the Obamas are teaching their kids, from an early age, that Christmas and life are all about kindness and giving to others.

"Bo, ho, ho" was the message Tuesday when first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters made a pre-Christmas visit to a children's hospital.

With them was the family's Portuguese water dog, who, in this rarest of public outings, had no formal remarks -- just barks and rebarks disrupting the first lady's reading of "A Visit From St. Nicholas."…”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tc-nw-first-lady-1222-1223dec23,0,6033850.story
Obama girls, Bo make holiday hospital rounds

**What will be surprising to very few, I still do, like Obama, that is,  but I admit there have been numerous times over the past year when I've felt real impatient, wondering how come he couldn’t just hurry up and accomplish some of the simple little tiny things----
like world peace and universal health care, (as in, health care for everyone in the universe), for instance.

[Jill]

Massachusetts.  Today.
"Universal" Health Care?  Tomorrow? Ever?

see, below

EDIT: Universal Health Care?  Well, as long as I brought the subject up, anyway, even though this video is posted somewhere else, who knows where else, on this Forum, since it's only three and a half minutes long and, to me, very VERY much bears repeating, let this guy say what I believe a whole lot more effectively than I ever could:

[Jill]

I'm placing this post here not because it's necessarily the best place for it.  (Some of you will likely question whether there is any appropriate place at the KF Forum for something like this).  No, I placed it here, mostly, to give fair warning to a number of you that this very probably will be something that might tick you off and that you maybe would just as soon skip it.

I, pretty clearly one of the “Haves,” liked this editorial imploring our President to remember the “Have Nots.”  I’m sure it could very easily go without saying that the reason I liked it is because I agree with it.  Many of you will not.  

And perhaps many others, maybe the majority of you, will opt not to read it at all, as is very much your right.  So, you’ll never know if you would agree with it or not.  And, as always, that’s absolutely your choice.

Dear Mr. President*, Forget The Poor, Lose Your Soul
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/dear-mr-president-forget_b_848271.html


I’m posting the image below just because, for me, it was a smile.  (And I like having images spice up our pages here).  But if it had accurately reflected my view of the world and my concerns with the inequities in our society, the little boy would have represented not the Middle Class, but rather, those in our society who would regard themselves as inordinately fortunate if they could even be counted among the Middle Class, which for too too many still seems an unattainable aspiration.

* Also, I wouldn't have addressed this exclusively to our President.  I, personally, think that remembering those who, by no fault of their own, have so very much less than we have, that that's something important for every caring person to remember, especially, but definitely not only at election time.

EDIT: I just came across this article.  I know that there’s all kinds of political spin that some people are quite adept in employing to explain and rationalize this phenomenon.  For me, personally, there just isn’t any excuse or explanation that makes it acceptable that the poor or even the middle class seem to have to shoulder more of the tax burden in this country than do those who are most able to absorb it.  This, of course, is one person’s opinion, mine.

Super rich see federal taxes drop dramatically
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110417/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_taxes