It seems
your President and First Lady did a marvelous job of embarrassing our country upon meeting with Queen Elizabeth II of England. I have never experienced that opportunity myself, but my peasants' understanding of the protocols is:
1. Upon meeting the Queen, women
curtsy and men
bow. One
does not shake hands with the Queen unless
she offers her hand first. Then the handshake should be brief and light of touch. One does not
squeeze the hand of the Queen!
2. One
does not lay hands upon the Queen at
any time (other than perhaps to remove her from immediate danger).
3. All persons granted an audience with the Queen are fully briefed on protocols
prior to the meeting. In the case of
your President and First Lady, they should have been briefed
twice - once by his protocol staff, and once by the Queen's attendants.
Those are the main protocols. I would deign to suggest two more:
1. The President of the United States of America should
not give the Queen of England a crappy
Ipod as a gift. It shows
little thoughtfulness, and even
less respect for Her Majesty!
2. The President of the United States of America should
not refer to the Queen of England as "Your typical white Grandmother."
The fact that the Queen is primarily a figurehead ruler, she
is, nonetheless,
The Ruler of a great nation that is - or at least
was - one of our staunchest allies. The lack of class and buffoonery displayed by
your President should be
an embarrassment to us all! And
this right on the heels of presenting her Prime Minister with 25 DVDs of American movies ...
From the Cleveland (OH) Leader: "The list of offenses is quite long. First, Obama is said to have cancelled a planned, podium-to-podium news conference with Brown, and also recently removed a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Adding further insult to the PM's visit were the cheap and thoughtless gifts that the President gave Mr. Brown and his family." The article goes on, "Brown clearly took care in choosing his gift for President Obama, presenting him with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President. The HMS President's sister ship, the HMS Resolute had previously provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk. Therefore the PM's gift was clearly not a last minute thought."
Perhaps
your President believes, deep down, that our British friends are
too white for him to show any respect.
Queen Elizabeth is too gracious to publicly display any feelings of insult to, or intrusion upon, her person. I, on the other hand,
am not. But then,
I still call a
terrorist a
terrorist - they are neither 'misunderstood allies,' nor 'friends-in-waiting.'
I
could be completely wrong about this... and Barack Obama
could be the
Imperial Wizard of the
KKK! The chances of either are pretty slim.
the middle east, although we do have some reasonably reliable political allies in the area. Saudi Arabia has been declared by Washington as one of our staunchest allies in the region, and that may be true - to the point that any Muslim can be a "staunch ally" of a non-Muslim. The religion of Islam prohibits befriending non-Muslims, but encourages the manipulation of political relationships to give the appearance of friendship. Essentially this is an allegiance of convenience. When the "friendship" is no longer beneficial to a Muslim, he may then terminate it, and turn upon his old "friend". And, when "the fit hits the Shan," it's the Muslims against everybody else - and there is almost 1,500 years of history which support that claim.
