This and that

This has been a day of really odd news articles. I'll briefly state my favorites. On Drudgereport you just can't escape this lovely photo of Chavez. With it is the statement by Chavez encouraging Obama to accept Socialism and you can read about it here. I feel that many of us believe our president is already headed in that direction. I wonder why they haven't met for a beer and a game of one on one in the White House - oh, have they built the basketball court in the White House yet? Well, maybe bowling.

Then there's our prestigious Secretary of State - please, tell me it ain't so, not a Joe Biden twin??? No! No! No!. Heck, I'm not a history major but I know that the United States of America's government has not been around longer than the European countries. Yes, she said that! We're older than Europe! What? Of course, to top that for Secretary of State Clinton, she gave the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a gift of a box with a button on it. The button was suppose to say "reset" but instead it said "overcharged." They got a big laugh out of the situation, but do you have a picture of the caliber of the political leaders we have in this Obama administration. Please, one Joe Biden who is noted for outragious gaffes is enough!

My personal favorite or rather most favorite disgusting event is the news of the gift from President Obama to Prime Minister Brown. As my husband and I travel around our wonderful country we enjoy most of all visiting our Presidential Museums and we've been to several. There is always a section of the gifts which that White House serving at the time has received. Each of the gifts from other countries are very ornate, expensive and unique. We would EXPECT that the gifts from our presidents would be comparable. Our current president gave to PM Brown on his recent visit to our country a selection of DVDS of American movies. It was suggested in one news report, these movies were something PM Brown could purchase on Amazon.com. And, get this, he gave PM Brown's gifts for his children and it has been suggested they came out of the White House gift shop - helicopters. Yeap, I've seen those helicopters in all of the gift shop museums I've visited and in the President Reagan gift catalog. So tacky! They have no class or sophication. I expect more from my elected president.

Isn't there someone in the White House who can advise this president what the protocol is for visiting dignitaries and gift giving? There was an article from the British press which stated that Michelle Obama didn't favor the British because of the slave era. She's come to our White House with a huge grudge on her shoulder and it looks like she will have persuasion for how our European and British friends will be treated by President Obama and the friends of the Obama's in the White House. It is really embarrassing. Please, send a Miss Manners to visit the White House for a policy on protocol.