Author Richard Bach once said ““Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.” But what is the problem is the gift? That is the problem being contemplated by the Obama Administration after a series of truly embarrassing gift gaffes that make the country look cheap, unsophisticated, or ignorant — or all of the above. The gaffes range from an insulting gift inadvertently given to the Russians by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a returning of a gift to England to the lack of class in giving gifts to the English Prime Minister.
Clinton thought that she had a novel idea for a gift by giving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a gift-wrapped red button that was supposed to say “reset” in Russian and English. It didn’t. “Peregruzka” means “overloaded” or “overcharged” and is viewed as a term of hostility. When Clinton look at a confused foreign minister asked if they got the word right, he said tersely, “You got it wrong,” Lavrov said. “This says ‘peregruzka,’ which means overcharged.” Clinton responded with a bit of a forced laugh and said “We won’t let you do that to us, I promise.” For the full story, click here. One would have hoped that a few people at the State Department might actually speak and read Russian as opposed to looking up terms in “Russian for Dummies” or wherever this particular word for found.
It was not a good week for Clinton after she got the names of EU diplomats wrong and left people shaking their heads at statement like:
“I have never understood multiparty democracy.It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy.”
The European griped that they traced their democratic traditions to ancient Greece. They have a point. Madison and others cited the democratic roots of ancient Greece in forming our own representative democracy. For the EU story, click here.
The Obamas came off not as much uneducated as uncouth. First, the Obamas sent back a famous sculpture of Winston Churchill that had been loaned to President George Bush and sat in the Oval Office. I can certainly understand that desire to decorate the Oval Office as the Obamas prefer. After all, they kept Bush’s rug. However, they might have found another spot in the White House. Instead, they returned the gift, which rubbed many Britans the wrong way. The British had expressly offered to extend the loan for four years but the Obamas said that they would prefer to send it back. For the full story, click here. It was an odd decision because it is a widely respected and striking bust that was a very thoughtful cultural gift from our allies.
I am more sympathetic over the bust decision (though I believe it would have been wiser to keep it or send it back with greater tact) than I am the controversy over the gifts to Prime Minister and his family. Anyone who has traveled on official delegations will attest to the importance of gift exchanges. In the case of Gordon Brown and his family, the British did it right. Brown gave Obama a unique pen made from the wood of the HMS Gannet, the sister ship of the HMS Resolute. The President’s desk is made from the wood of the Resolute. For history bluffs like myself, it was an exciting and incredibly thoughtful gift. Brown also gave Obama a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. For her part, Mrs. Sarah Brown went to extraordinary lengths to get the correct sizes of Malia and Sasha to buy them dresses and matching necklaces from one of England’s best shops, Topshop. She also gave the girl’s pre-publication copies of children’s books.
What did we give the Browns? A box of 25 DVDs of movies like ET that you could pick up for less than $200 in England. It left the impression for some British citizens that we thought that they did not actually have things like DVDs or somehow missed the release of The Wizard of Oz. For the Brown boys, Fraser and John, the Obama’s gave them cheap replicas of Marine One which appeared to have been grabbed in the White House gift shop shortly before the event.
I am truly the last person to object about such issues of the protocol. However, I agree with irate British writers that the treatment of the Blairs was insulting and embarrassing. The First Lady has an entire office and staff that is dedicated to such events. It is indeed one of the most important jobs of the First Lady. The President has an entire cadre of protocol specialists. We looked perfectly wretched in all of this. It is not the diplomatic slight. As a private host, I would have felt obligated to show more effort for a visitor from abroad.
The new Administration may have a considerable number of tasks at hand but they should work a bit harder on acquiring a bit more tact.
For the full story, click here.
Repeating the same disinformation over and over does make it more true.
George Bush did that regularly and we all know how that turned out!
Two points:
1. The gift gaffe will be quickly forgotten.
2. Jill & others bold enough to criticize Obama in this forum may sound like Cassandra now… but we all know how that turned out.
S/B
Why? Humans expressing heart is natural. I don’t want to hug everyone lottakatz, no not when a shake will do. 🙂
That square is some kind of Freudian slip?! 🙂
Lottakatz,
“They did shake hands after all. They did that old, tired greeting ritual wherein the sword or weapon hand (normally, the right hand) was extended empty and grasped by each other. Really, most of these rituals are dated but I don’t think men are going to stop shaking hands tomorrow just because it’s a dated social convention.”
The pericardium meridian has a point in the palm of the hand and at the end of the middle finger. Symbolically and energetically a hand shake for me conveys a heart to heart exchange.
“Try ignoring the handshake ritual as needlessly vestigial with your boss, father-in-law or a client the next time they visit, or a stranger the next time you’re introduced in a business or formal setting.”
Why? Humans expressing heart is natural. I don’t want to hug everyone lottakatz, no not when a shake will do.
Next time on “When Phony Accents Collide” . . .
Angry Brits:
“…many here in Britain thinks it time we take a vacation from being your ally…”
*********
Ah pseudo-Brit, it’s referred to as “holiday” in Britain, not “vacation,” but then again you already knew that I suppose.
“Mike
Gordon Brown saw Obama because a meeting with the US President is a boost for his popularity, particularly Obama who is rated highly around the world. …Perhaps crap like the exchange of diplomatic gifts ought to end.”
Protocol and ritual are useful shorthand in and across societies and cultures. They establish a mutually understood basis for proceeding in or maintaining a relationship. It really doesn’t matter why one party visited the other, a certain ritual takes place to acknowledge that the visit is valuable and welcomed by both parties. I’d rather my President not fumble any more of them than necessary. If he’s going to change the ritual he better send out a memo otherwise he looks like a lightweight and how you look to the people you deal with is important.
They did shake hands after all. They did that old, tired greeting ritual wherein the sword or weapon hand (normally, the right hand) was extended empty and grasped by each other. Really, most of these rituals are dated but I don’t think men are going to stop shaking hands tomorrow just because it’s a dated social convention.
Srsly, try ignoring the handshake ritual as needlessly vestigial with your boss, father-in-law or a client the next time they visit, or a stranger the next time you’re introduced in a business or formal setting 😉
So ingrained is that totally impractical ritual that the only people I have known that could not shake hands with their right hand for medical reasons made a game effort of a hand-clasping with their left or apologized with something like ‘Pardon me for not shaking, I’d like to but this arthritis/nerve damage etc.’
I recall when women in business started initiating the full-on ‘manly’ handshake instead of the modified feminine hand shake- a delicate and genteele thing with hands barely clasped at hardly more than the fingers with only an inference of a shake going on. Most businessmen I and my women friends entering business met didn’t know how to respond to women usurping their manly ritual. It was a hoot. We would compare notes over such matters and I’m sure our observations were not unique.
We observed also that while it was worth doing for that reason alone it did make a difference in the way we were dealt with. We were establishing a basis for interaction with a ritual the meaning of which was so deeply ingrained in our male counterparts that it conditioned reflexive behavior in certain settings. We used the ritual to eastblish a baseling for our status and inclusion. It was a small but significant gesture. As was mirroring their dress; well tailored dark pantsuits helped.
Changing the face of business, one firm handshake, dark pantsuit and inclusive ritual at a time 😉
Prof, this is one of the fewish instances in which I must say that you are absolutely right. I still like the Obamas though.
In the hours that followed the gift exchange, the following tirade was recorded by intelligence surveillance of the British Prime Minister reacting to the faux pas:
“A box of DVDs? I’ve seen most of these movies already anyway! E.T.? That was like 1982 wasn’t it? Are you bloody kidding me? Guy Fawkes picked the wrong building to go after, I’m telling you …
We went well out of our bloody way to make a wonderful gift for the new American President. The wood from the ships, you know with the pen and the desk … the way that they tie together perfectly. I mean really, it was a brilliant gift. And they give me a box of DVD movies? And not one Kubrick film included. I didn’t see one in there, did you notice that?
I’m about to go Christian Bale on these guys, I swear it! We should just go right ahead and suspend trade with this crappy country. No more Cadbury’s chocolate bars for you bleeding yanks. That’s it! We’re pulling them. You can just subsist on your Hershey bars. Hershey bars … really. Bloody crap.”
All joking aside, I think the gift from the other side of the pond was thoughtful and well crafted, and the gift from our side was the equivalent of handing in a hastily scribbled homework assignment written just before class started. It shouldn’t reflect on the president, who really is not in charge of these sorts of things, but unfortunately it does reflect on him, and on us, nonetheless.
Does it really matter in the larger scheme of things?
Of course not.
There are bigger fish to fry at this moment in history. But it does make one wonder (as I often have at the appointments made by this president) just whom he is surrounding himself with, whom he is giving jobs to, and whom he is taking advice from …
Mike and Jonolan,
Well said. I would agree that Angry Brits should change his name to Angry Troll.
mespo727272,
In your reference to Alexis de Tocqueville you hit on what I was saying. The “elite,” those who were raised to move in the circles of power understand the trappings and banalities of that society, one of which is extravagant gift giving.
The Obamas, with their more proletarian upbringings have little understanding of such things.
Is it important? Maybe. Some peoples take such things seriously, such as the British. Others care less about them.
As for class insults, that’s ridiculous. Accepting and acknowledging the background of an individual is no insult at all. It levels expectations and allows one not to take such things as a thoughtless – by some standards – gift as an insult.
Angry Brits,
My guess is you’ve never been farther than two hundred miles from your Alabama home. Lots of unattributed quotes from a shameless London Tabloid with a reputation equal to the National Enquirer, which I assume is the total of your weekly
reading.
Lottakatz,
I would rate diplomatic gift giving on a 1 to 10 scale as a
.01. Gift giving does have much social significance in this case though, not very much. Gordon Brown also has a lot more on his plate than worrying about the gifts he’s received from our President.
As far as the Japanese and the art of gift giving I think they are a fairly sophisticated people. Gordon Brown saw Obama because a meeting with the US President is a boost for his popularity, particularly Obama who is rated highly around the world. The same is true for the Japanese Prime Minister.
Finally, perhaps this was a comment by the Obama Administration of change. The ritual of diplomatic gift giving goes back at least 4,500 years and is a relic of the pretenders to Royal eliteness that Jonolan so adores. Perhaps crap like the exchange of diplomatic gifts ought to end. They’ve never stopped any war, tribute or lack of same is not a gift and they’ve never started one.
Hey Yanks! Your Obama is a doofus! You’ll be lucky to survive him! As far as everything else, many here in Britain thinks it time we take a vacation from being your ally – for about 4 years.
United State’s Obama fumbled Brown visit because he’s in over his head
Daily Telegraph 3/7/09
Insulting Gordon Brown during the British prime minister’s visit this week by ignoring protocol and cheaping out on the traditional gift exchange, the UK media has erupted in outrage. The Obama White House has now started to recognize the firestorm the new President created with our closest ally, and wants to assure the Brits that he meant no disrespect.
Instead, Obama apparently wants to assure them that he’s simply in over his head and floundering:
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.
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”. …
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.
“Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.”
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book Three, Chapter XI
And the keen observer of both American and European societies could have added, “but they do give great gifts.”
binx101:
Good to see you back on station. Carry on corpsman!
It has taken me some time to collect my thoughts about this article. It also seems quite apparent that the condition of the world economy, civil unrest and a government that has essentially gone off the rails is a tad more important than lecturing on ‘protocol’ as it were.
Frankly, there was little value in this critique without a recommendation of the corrective measures from a notable source.
One thing I will be happy to wager about – these international relations gaffes will cease at a lightning speed and be forgotten equally quickly. In my opinion, this falls in to the “I am a donut (dough nut, dough naught) category of gaffes, where the intention is being obscured because of the snarky value of the criticism.
As to the usual suspects and their theories of societal development and breeding – what can one say that is polite? It is near impossible and hardly worth any reasonable person’s efforts.
Gift giving unimportant? Maybe for an enlightened few but for the rest of society (in the broadest of terms) gift giving is very important and has always been.
Abraham’s son was to be a gift to God. Ritualized and expected but nonetheless a gift. Human and animal sacrifice (even when done in a hopefully quid pro quo arrangement) were considered gifts. I had a friend that set aside Christmas and Veterans day as blood donating occasions. When I asked him about it he just shrugged and said about Veterans day, “you know, just a gift to our soldiers”. I have never looked at casualties among the military (even in wars I hate) the same since that discussion.
I had a friend that was part American Native who had a ‘zine (back in the day when people wrote, illustrated, printed up and mailed general info and specialized subject info on PAPER) she regularly traded with other ‘zine writers.
She named it “Potlatch” and explained to us nubes that it was the name of a very old cultural form of gift giving (practiced by some American Native cultures)that set great value and status on people that gave gifts. The more gifts given the more valuable the giver was in society. This was expanded to the tribal level also. Tribes competed to provide the best potlatch to other tribes as a way to improve their status among the tribes in their tribal nation.
I suspect if there were a scholarly assessment of the subject (I’m not one so I’m not gonna’ volunteer to do it 😉 ) gifting and potlatch concepts go back to the dawn of humanity because as your family or tribal group travels to regions more favorable to food gathering etc. to meet a stranger with a gift is more conducive to living through the meeting than meeting a stranger or new tribe with nothing or belligerence.
The whole concept of a father ‘giving away’ his daughter as a bride raises gifting as a cultural political tool to whole new heights. I recall dimly a school lecture on the giving of brides between clans and tribes (in, as I recall, both Africa and someplace in the ‘ring of fire’- Indonesia, New Guinea, someplace like that) to strengthen tribal bonds went on into the mid-20Th century as a specific ritual. Arranged marriages are all about social position and wealth and the brides gifts to the husbands families(dowry’s)are measured ruthlessly.
I ramble. In any event, even if the gift tradition were an entirely recent and commercial construct it’s vitally important to Western culture. Companies that do badly at Christmas can go out of business because so much of a companies revenue is made up of Christmas shopping.
I just hope whoever is in charge of such things at the White House is replaced quickly by someone that knows what they are doing and that the Obama’s aren’t meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister soon. In Japan, gift giving is an art form; a box of CD’s could start another war 😉
Uh–Professor Turley–I’m not a legal scholar. I am, frankly, suspicious of all lawyers; it’s genetic, passed down through my hillbilly ancestors. But what interests me here is this–granted this is a whole pile of SOCIAL gaffes the Obama administration seems to have made so far–but even a lawyer-hating hillbilly can spot that there are no legal issues here. So what, exactly, is your point?
I have to agree that the gift stories are not a big deal. Could the gifts have been better? Obviously, yes, but there are much more important issue that need to be addressed. As to the nationalization of the banks, I think we should not nationalize, but we should set up a Bank like the Resolution Trust Company that we used in the 80’s to clean up the Savings and Loan debacle.