Friday, April 3, 2009

Been to London to visit the queen

The BritPress has gone postal over the Obamas’ meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. Seems Michelle’s clothes were all wrong, & then she put her arm around HM—terrible breach of protocol, evidently tantamount to a declaration of war.



Blah, blah, blah.

What no one’s ’splained to me is why the Queen is carrying a handbag…in her own palace. I mean, it's not like she's going to be called upon to pay the Domino's delivery guy.




Then we got back to…The Gifts. You'll recall how bent out of shape British newsmen were at the exchange of gifts between Obama & Gordon Brown when the PM came over here a month ago.

Apparently this time Obama gifted HM with an iPod pre-loaded with videos of her recent visit to Williamsburg & Jamestown (celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of the latter). The British press dissed this out of hand as cheesy, & besides, the Queen already has an iPod…

Well, maybe—but does she have an iPod with videos she can replay while sitting through the annual Opening of Parliament? I think not.

She, by the way, gave Obama a silver-framed autographed photo of herself & the Duke of Edinburgh.

British press have termed this the very model of a tasteful diplomatic gift.

Whatever.

After all this fulmination, I give you this column from the National Review to put things into perspective.

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