Obama and the Art of Tasteless Gifting

By The Manolith Team on March 10th, 2009

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Like sweets for a diabetic and wristwatch for a man with no arms so are American DVDs for a Brit. They won’t play on most DVD players on the other side of the Atlantic. And this is what Obama did – gifted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown 25 DVDs of American classics. Not just this, to the British press it appears that a whole lot of planned insensitivity has gone into the gifts that Obama gave to the British premier when he visited America last week.

The presidential gift-giving has had London aghast; the Brits are not amused that Obama gifted brown a pen holder crafted from the timber of the 19th century British warship HMS President. The Englishmen have still not gotten over the fact that their ship HMS Resolute provided the wood for the Oval Office’s desk and now this… violating the instruments that enabled Britannia to rule the waves.

The Times of London has described Michelle Obama’s gifts to the Brown kids as “solipsistic” or self-centered and obnoxious. The gifts in question are toy models of “Marine One”, the presidential helicopter. The Brits are miffed also because the British premier’s family on its part did put in some thought when selecting gifts for the Obama kids. They were gifted dresses with matching necklaces with a selection of books by British authors.

What’s further annoyed British press is that Obama has also removed a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and replaced it with one of Abraham Lincoln. Now why did he have to do that? I mean the bust has probably been there for long and successive presidents have “put up” with it, so what was Obama’s problem.