As we entered the office we were visiting, the TV was on low showing the news. The coverage was of President Obama's visit to the Queen of England.
The low level international gaffes are starting to pile up, and people are starting to murmur.
The President gave the Queen an iPod with footage of her 2007 visit to the U.S. and some music -- but she already has one and everyone knows it. First Lady, Michelle Obama, hugged the Queen: a minor breach of protocol.
Earlier last month, Obama gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs with the wrong region encoding and confused England with the U.K. and vice versa. At the beginning of his tenure, Obama sent the bust of Churchill back to the U.K.
Secretary Clinton asked who painted the miraculous picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico (although her office later tried to spin it that she was looking at a replica and not the original). Earlier this year Clinton gave Russia a gift of a red reset button with the wrong Russian word printed on it after "working hard to come up with the right word".
Today, President Obama actually bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. Hello? The President of the United States does NOT bow to foreign dignitaries. We are cordial and polite, but we don't acknowledge the superiority of ANY other country to ours. Our soldiers only wear the colors of our own country; we fly our flag higher than all else; we salute with the edge of our hands, showing our unbeaten strength; the language of international business is English; and the world trades in U.S. dollars (still!).
We are (still!) the world's only superpower. Many forces threaten our hegemony, our leadership and prestige. We risk giving it away in ways large and small with these international blunders and disastrous economic policy. Regardless of political affiliation, the country deserves both to be respected and to show (proper) respect to others.
The former junior Senator from Illinois needs to fire whoever is currently in charge of international protocol -- if anyone.
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