Commander In Crew Chief
The leftist joke propagated upon the Country during the last election has begun to play out on a world stage like a bad comedy with sub standard actors. While the left keeps telling us to wait until 100 days in office to judge the President, I have begun to wonder if this is merely a stalling tactic to come up with some kind of defense for the deplorable embarrassment this Administration has been during its "on-the-job training mode". While Obama's resume left no doubt that he lacked the experience needed to do the job, his actions since taking over give little hope that he has the mental ability to turn this all around.
Let us ignore for a second the fact that in just two months he has added more to the deficit than the grand sum total of all Presidents from the start of the country through George W. Bush. Let us overlook his domestic moments of mental midgetry like his "57 States" comment and his public slander of the mentally handicapped. I won't even bother with the utter incompetence of his nominees. For the leftists who made a living over the last eight years calling Bush an idiot, let's take a look at the global snafus of the new Prisident, Barack Huesien Obama and his Administration.
The Red Button Gaffe. Many people fail to recognize how truly idiotic this moment was. At a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered a gift to Russia. It was a red button that was supposed to have the Russian word for "reset" on it to symbolize how the new Administration wished to reset Americas relationship with Russia. Instead, the button had the Russian word “peregruzka” which means "overcharge". Ampilfying the error was the words of Hillary Clinton before opening and presenting it to a laughing Lavrov. She said “We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?". He pointed out that they had not, gave the meaning of the word, and Hillary (if I must say so myself) showed some quick wit as she offhandedly remarked that we would not allow Russia to overcharge us.
The real error, however, went far beyond this administrations inability to translate a simple five letter word. Who in the heck came up with the idea to give a red button, let alone a ceremony in which it would be pushed, to a former nuclear enemy? Lavrov noted this blunder in the press conference following a meeting between the two. He said “It is a very, very large red button. I do hope that Russia and the United States and other countries would never ever push any other buttons associated with initiation of destructive hostilities.”
Then came the day when Gordon Brown came to visit. Armed with a gift of a pen holder carved from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk) as a gift for Barack Obama, Gordon Brown arrived in the U.S. for the meeting. The gift chosen by Obama to give back to Brown? Non other than a collection of 25 American Classic movies that neither would work in a British DVD player nor would require any type of effort for Brown to buy himself in England.
A little less conspicuous was the gift swapping between the children. A set of models of the President's helicopter Marine 1 were purchased at the last minute from the White House gift shop for the sons of Gordon Brown to be given by Michelle Obama. Sarah Brown had brought gifts of dresses for Sasha and Malia Obama from the UK's trendy Top Shop with matching necklaces and a selection of books by British authors.
But perhaps the most embarrassing part of this exchange is how Gordon Brown is perceived in his own country. Largely viewed as a hapless idiot, he somehow managed to upstage the the locally perceived Messiah. This is a real life equivalent of Forrest Gump picking up a motel room phone and exposing Nixon to the world.
Realizing the error of their collective ways, the Administration focused on the upcoming G20 Summit and promissed they would be on much better behavior for the Queen of England. They flopped. Frankly, I don't even know where to start here, so I guess the gift is as good a place as any. As I predicted on my show, Her Royal Highness should receive videos that she could actually watch without traveling to America. Apparently not realizing that I was freaking joking, Obama brought the Queen none other that an Ipod loaded with videos of her previous trip to the United States and two of his speeches. But it gets better.
In absolute violation of protocol, Michelle Obama reached out and groped the Queen during their visit. Even William Jefferson Clinton was able to control himself better in the presence of the woman. The Queen did respond to the gesture and her PR office tried to glaze over the incident. While our own liberal press here tries to re-write history once again to save face for Obama, a New York Times article points out that it is indeed against protocal and "when Prime Minister Paul Keating of Australia did the same thing back in 1992 the newspapers here called him the “Lizard of Oz.”
But the most embarrassing moment of the Commander in Crew Chiefs overseas visit came when meeting the King of Saudi Arabia and bowing so deeply that his head was level with the King's waist. The other dignitaries in the room (who apparently have some type of a clue of proper etiquette for the situation) were simply shaking hands with the leader.
This begs the question; was President Obama a bit star struck or absolutely clueless? Given the track record of his administration so far, I would have to go with the latter. However, I choose to break my own protocol for a bit here myself. Typically, I choose to simply laugh at Obama and continue to ask the left "is this the genius you were talking about?". However, today I wish to offer a few words of advice to the President. Get a clue. You want to create jobs? Great. How about hiring someone who has at least a partially working knowledge of ettquette to give yourself and your wife a crash course in greeting foreign dignitaries before you wind up saluting the Burger King on a lunch break. And yes, for future reference, it is proper for your wife to hug the Dairy Queen in the event she ever meets her.
