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.
Does anyone here read? And do I really have to spend my time going back over old posts? Being intimately familiar with ones ancestry is not an automatic indicator of a legacy of wealth.
In my case, it’s why I ‘give a rats ass’ about damage to our Constitution so personally.
I am successful in own right. Nobody paid my way.
Here is Patric Walsh’s briefing, yet again:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=284246-1
AND
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/2501826
Gitmo complies with Geneva treaties says US
“…About 240 captives remain at Guantanamo, including five accused of plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks that promoted the US war on terrorism.
Only one has been convicted of a crime.
US courts and military review panels have cleared a few dozen others for release, including 17 members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority who were cleared years ago.
But they remain at the base because US officials fear they would be tortured if returned to China, will not bring them to the United States and can not find another nation to take them in.
“They are very exasperated by this process,” Walsh said.
Human rights groups disputed Walsh’s findings that the camp was in full compliance with the requirement for humane treatment.
They said most Guantanamo prisoners were still held in severe isolation and faced psychological and physical abuse and threats of violence from guards.
“They are caught in a vicious cycle where their isolation causes psychological damage, which causes them to act out, which brings more abuse and keeps them in isolation,” said Pardiss Kebriaei, a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the prisoners.
“If they are going to be there another year, or even another day, this has to end.”
Mike A.,
Superb analysis, quite elegant in its’ brevity.
Thank you Mike Appleton your eloquence is appreciated.
Bron,
Very funny. 😀 No, I have limits to who I’ll let sign my paycheck and you’ve just hit one of my limits. Although it is the kind of subversive advice I’d give so good call on that. lol
Buddha:
are you their new media consultant?
I may be wrong but the way I read it was that Steele is being attacked by the status quo of the party and so the empire strikes back reference, Steele is Luke Skywalker and Haley Barber is Darth Vader. Does that make Rush Yoda?
Mike A:
Very well said. Agree 100%.
Speaking of linguistic abuse, who in Hell told the GOP that “The Empire has struck back” would be an appropriate message? Have none of their “image consultants” seen a Star Wars film? Do they not know the Empire are the bad guys? It’s the kind of thing that just makes me shake my head. People are unemployed at record rates and this is the help they pay for? Stunning. On the plus side, it shows the (poor) quality of their organization.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/09/steele-adviser-on-gop-naysayers-the-empire-has-struck-back/
Bron,
“The pilgrims in my mind are all that is wrong with America and should be taught only as a footnote to our history.”
I still contend the modern trend in fundamentalism in general and in Christianity in particular traces it’s roots to Puritanism. They, like modern fundamentalists, were divisive and aggressive proselytizers. It didn’t help that contemporaneously they were generally seen as dour killjoys and socially disruptive. There is a reason the English and Dutch showed them the door and they ended up in the wilds of the New World. And it wasn’t the buckles on hats fashion faux pas either.
And as far as Rand goes, you can mark me down in the “what mespo said” column.
Mike A.,
Sometimes lecture is the appropriate format. Good show and seconded.
There has been an interesting exchange on this thread regarding the character of those held at Gitmo and those who have conducted various investigations. The truth is that all of us have some sort of agenda, expressed or not. But I have drawn certain conclusions based wholly upon what I have read and heard over the past seven years, coupled with a life of varied experiences and my grasp of human nature. By the time the dust settles, I believe we will find that the majority of people held at Gitmo had no business being there. There were by and large people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time, or who had offended people having power over them, or were random victims of financial vigilantism. One of the strongest arguments for this conclusion is the fact that they lived in limbo for years while the Bush administration attempted to come up with justifications, unrelated to factual information, for their detention, fumbled for ways to deal with them and ultimately abandoned any responsibility in the whole matter, leaving it up to the new administration to clean up the mess. We will find that most of them were rounded up for the same reason this has occurred through history. Ignorance feeds fear; fear informs decision-making; bad decisions result. This is a universal truth, regardless of how offended administration supporters may be by the suggestion that Americans are not above such stuff. One of the most dangerous doctrines currently infecting this country is that of American exceptionalism, the illicit offspring of religion and unquestioning patriotism. We had better remember that we are as capable as anyone else of committing horrendous human abuses. And the more arrogant we become about our supposed moral superiority in the world, the greater the risk of moral failure. I know this sounds more like a lecture than a comment, but we need to get over ourselves and have the guts to look at our policies realistically and with a critical eye.
LindyLou,
We are fortunate to have most of the junk postings removed and I am glad that we have as many comments from women within this blawg as we do. I would even prefer additional feminine perspectives to the topics and it would be a shame to lose any of the regular ‘gals’.
LindyLou:
that is her typical MO? She must be a real putz (sp?).
But then again if you can trace your ancestry back to the Rock…
Personally I like to think that the real founding of America, the true intellectual founding occured at Jamestown. An outpost created for doing business in the New World. Risk takers willing to start an outpost on the far side of the “moon” for profit. The pilgrims in my mind are all that is wrong with America and should be taught only as a footnote to our history.
Personally I would hide my head in shame if I had a pilgrim ancestor.
I’m very surprised to see people agree that what has gone on between Patty and Jill has been a 2-way fight. What I’ve seen is that Patty takes every opportunity to say awful things about Jill, with Jill stoically silent. These dust-ups always seem to end with Patty reminding us yet again how upper crust she is.
PattyC
I always spell the frigging word wrong, thank you for correcting me.
I actually do know what doctors have to do to become doctors, and think they have a very good training program that I wish engineers would incorporate into our post college training.
I actually modeled my own career on your (medicines) approach. I worked at about 5 companies that covered different aspects of civil and structural engineering-everything from testing and inspection to actual construction and then went to work for a structural firm.
The one thing about engineers though is that if we screw up a bunch of people can die, not just one and we cant bury our mistakes they are out there for everyone to see. In addition a small screw up can cost millions of dollars even if no one is killed or injured. And we dont have other engineers trying to save our “highly” trained behinds like the medical profession does.
‘Memorization is easy applying principals is a little bit harder.’
—
So true, and you forgot to memorize your prior representation that ‘Waynebro’, three ‘yous’ ago at least, whom you profess NOT to be, is the same troll who claimed a 17-year employment history as a data ENGINEER/security consultant. Doh!
Busted, Wayne – you and your ‘principles’! 😛
Your spelling still sucks.
You know even less about the level of skill and intense hands-on training required to pass licensing toward the successful practice of medicine, than you do about what constitutes being called an engineer.
ng: Thank you
Jill,
I would submit to you that there is an equal danger to accepting whole cloth the assertions of the Center for Constitutional Rights with regard to detainee treatment, as there is with accepting the findings of the Department of Defense’s internal report.
Your quote from the CCR:
“Solitary confinement, sensory deprivation, environmental manipulation, and sleep deprivation are daily realities for these men and have led to the steady deterioration of their physical and psychological health.
In addition, detainees are subjected to brutal physical assaults by the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF), a team of military guards comparable to a riot squad, who are trained to respond to alleged ‘disciplinary infractions’ with overwhelming force. Detainees have also been deprived of virtually all meaningful contact with their families, and have suffered interference with and abuse related to their right to practice their religion.”
CCR is not just an impartial non-profit studying the conditions of confinement. Their lawyers are advocates on behalf of detainees, and their information is directly derived from that representation. CCR as an organization has never been granted unfettered access to the facilities in the manner that the International Committee of the Red Cross has. Would you say that those detainees’ statements are self-serving? Of course. Might those statements be skewed to enhance a certain agenda, for example, to persuade (or manipulate) the larger human rights community into pushing for their release?
You would not hesitate one bit to proclaim that the “Walsh Report” on the conditions of detention at Guantanamo was self-serving, and thus unreliable. Forgetting for the moment that it was the internal investigations published in the Church and Schmidt-Furlow reports that brought many of the abuses at Guantanamo to light in the first place.
The Seton Hall report that you cite for the proposition that “most of the people are Gitmo aren’t terrorists” is skewed as well — first of all, the authors are counsel for two detainees. And, while the use of statistics has a tendency to impart the imprimatur of “truthiness,” the portrayal of those statistics is still a subjective matter. The report concludes that 55% of detainees “are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies” — the implication being that 45% did commit hostile acts. Hardly what I’d call strong support for your assertion.
I’m not a strong supporter of what the prior administration did with regard to making counterterrorism a warfighting function. But it irks me equally to see such kneejerk statements from those who should know better than to swallow everything that is fed to them without question.
You might want to check your ‘facts’…
You ignore my challenges, because you can’t argue with me.
I’d call that ‘weak’!
I’m seldom wrong because I don’t speak with confidence about matters I’m less than sure about. It’s one of my major pet peeves, in fact.
In my business, patient’s lives depend on making the right call…
Patty:
you are not very selfaware are you. Physcian heal thyself and take to heart the admonition about the unexamined life.
While its admirable you are a doctor, I have met many doctors that are particullary dull witted (I have not met you so I am not implying anything) and I wonder how they made it through medical school. Do not make the mistake that many (doctors) do and that is “I have gone to medical school so the rest of you are ignorant”.
Memorization is easy applying principals is a little bit harder.
Patty,
You spend much of your post time with personal attacks against me. It is very ignorant of you to keep doing this. Again I will say personal attacks are weak and unprofessional. I will just ignore your posts from now on. The only reason I didn’t more recently is because you denied the existence of torture.
PattyCp:
You brought up DAR/SAR as if it was sufficient to put the argument to rest.