The Obamas are bad gift-givers!
The British press has its knickers in a twist over the gifts exchanged by President and Mrs. Obama and Prime Minister and Mrs. Gordon Brown.
According to the Daily Mail, Brown's gifts to Obama included an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet, once named HMS President; the framed commission for HMS Resolute; and a first-edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.
"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," the Mail gushed.
Meanwhile, according to the Mail, Brown secreted away his gift from Obama "hidden in his luggage" -- a collection of 25 classic American films on DVD.
"It is not known which DVDs were included, but one is thought to be the Dreamworks film Toy Story," the Mail reported with disdain.
As a result:
No 10 had tried to keep the present a secret, refusing to answer reporters who asked what President Obama had given to mark the reaffirmation of the special relationship.
Oh, the shame!!
Obama isn't the only one in trouble with the press over his ill-conceived gifts to the British First Family. Michelle Obama is also taking a media beating across the pond for "a most uncharacteristic lapse of judgement," displayed through her choice of gifts for Mrs. Brown and the Brown children that "could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown."
That's a long way from the soaring rhetoric Brown delivered to a joint session of Congress about the unbreakable and special alliance between the U.K. and the U.S.A.
Well, no one said diplomacy was easy.
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