28 thoughts on “To The Queen”

  2. This type of thing is amazing to me. There are people whose full time job is to know about proper protocol. Why can’t he get it right? This is not a partisan thing. I simply cannot figure out how he can continue blunder away on these kinds of things.

  5. Must be the same producers as the Oscars. Cut off the puffed-up, windbag, speechifyer-in-chief with the music before he goes off on a rant.

  7. Affirmative Action President; they are happy he can walk on two limbs and read text…He’s used that everybody cut him more slack than everybody else. And they still do!

  9. I second what Tatyana said but would add his arrogance probably leads him to ignore advice.

  10. The schadenfreude was most delicious, and the Queen served it very well.

    Does anyone here believe that this guy can be advised and take heed indeed?

  11. You see it’s always about him; he’s in his own movie, and indeed admits it: President Obama to Deputy PM Clegg: “I thought that it was like, it was like out of the movies when the soundtrack kinda comes in,” President Obama quipped to Clegg, of the interruption.

  13. I must admit that my first question was about protocol advisers. Either they are rubbish (this is not the first flub) and Obama should fire them or he is not listening to them but, surely, he would after the first couple of problems. OK, it may be a little odd that they play God Save the Queen first but that’s what they do. Obama is not the first American President or any other Head of State to have had to toast the Queen at a state banquet. Anyway, HM was brilliant, as always. She is so good at letting people know what she thinks of them without being obviously rude. If you want a laugh, check out any video of her at the appalling, tasteless, tacky, ghastly opening of the Millennium Dome. Her face was a picture.

  14. In terms of protocol it was a big flub, okay. But do we have a president who needs speech writers for a toast? Cliches seem to be their meat and potatoes. For instance, that great passage is meaningful, but it only a cliche when spoken by our president in that place at that time. Couldn’t they have done better? And why does he so self-consciously read it? Is that because of the formality of the situation? Or as a more subtle insult? Or, well, what? We are being led by someone who. . . what? I assume he speaks at meetings, etc. Certainly it is his vision that has (unfortunately) dominated the last two years. But how does he communicate that vision? Who writes his speeches? How does he instruct them?

  15. Another laughable gaffe, by a laughable Commander in Chief. Which will be buried by his minions in the media, both here and in the UK.
    The Telegraph ran a piece today on his speech to Parliament, which while not glowing still attempted to spin it as “Gosh, he’s so bright and articulate, it’s amazing that once in awhile he still can strike out!”. Similarly pitched as the outlets that pilloried Netanyahu for lecturing our President in his Congressional speech, while overtly accepting: 1) Obama dictating what Israel should do with its own territory, and 2) the President’s absence from the US in the first place, when Netanyahu addressed Congress.

    When will the kowtowing to this cardboard-cutout President end?
    And these selfsame ‘experts’ and media outlets assure us that Palin, Pawlenty, Daniels, Trump, Christie, Rubio,…………and all the other candidates or would be/should be candidates are unprepared and too unskilled?
    Seems like a very, VERY low bar to clear, based upon the performance of the past 28 months.
    Enjoy the free drinks at Queenie’s house for now, Barry. You’ll be buying your own drinks come January 2013. We hope.

  16. Mlyster – I hope too, but an not counting on it. We’ll see.

    Ginny – great point. Who on earth is writing his stuff, and why can’t he memorize just a few lines for a toast at an important state dinner? I believe this video starts at the end of a speech he was making – again, why?

    Oh well, as others have pointed out, this will be buried by the MSM, hopefully a lot of other outlets will pick it up and run with it. I have been laughing about it all day.

  17. President Obama is one of those really smart people who (as my boss is fond of saying) “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” You didn’t see these kinds of gaffes with Bush II, or Clinton, or Bush I, or Reagan, or Carter, or other modern presidents because these presidents SOUGHT THE ADVICE OF AND PAYED ATTENTION TO THEIR PROTOCOL OFFICERS. Obama, apparently, is to smart to need to do this. And don’t get me started on the First Lady hugging the Queen.

  21. All of our witty comments about Obama mean nothing unless we all take actions to defeat him in the next election.

  22. His speeches remind me of when I was a sophmore in college and figured out how to guarantee an A on any assigned essay.

    Relate whatever topic to some overreaching and banal “truism” that validates the self worth of the reader/audience. Its pavlovian.

  23. I’m the only one who thinks this, but frankly, I think the orchestra came in much too soon. Or is it customary for a toast to be a single sentence?

  24. Dom, I think they have a plan for the ceremony and protocol offices are supposed to know that. If he had been as quick as he is supposed to be, and the orchestra made a mistake, he could have stopped, waited and gone on after the music ended.

    The Clintons filled the WH Travel Office with poor relations. Maybe he has done the same with the protocol office.

  26. Charles Silver – oh I see. So I can just keep flapping my yapper whenever they play the Star Spangled Banner? For all we know the zero probably thought they were playing “My country ’tis of Thee”. Everyone will make excuses for this enormous gaffe for Obama, that was to be expected. Good thing Elizabeth is so gracious or he would have looked even the bigger fool.

  27. @Southern Man: I can assure you that Clinton had his share of gaffes in the UK. I was Press Officer in London for five of his visits. They went more smoothly over time, but the first few were pretty rough.

    It’s not the presidents so much as their staffs, starting with the ‘Advance Teams’. The come in with clear ideas of how they’re going to please the bosses (the several layers between them and POTUS) and then meet reality. They call in the bigger guns to help negotiate the WH wants, but rarely win. There is a certain amount of nasty mirth to be had in hearing conversations like the following take place:

    WH Advance: Well, POTUS would like to do X, it’s the way he always does it.

    UK Protocol: Oh, I understand, yes, indeed. But you see, we’ve be doing it this way for some 800 years. We rather know how we want it done.

    Then there are the minor technical issues… The Brits won’t close Heathrow just because POTUS is landing/taking off. Nor will they close the M7 so his motorcade can roll into London. The 23-car motorcade simply won’t fit on Downing St. And when Secret Service expresses its view on insufficient security, the Brits will compare how many monarchs have been assassinated within the past 100 years with how many presidents have died.

    The problems–for all presidents–start with the fact that the majority of the advance teams are 20-something volunteers who know just everything and will tell everyone–including the on-ground experts–just how things are. Dealing with them takes patience and a sense of humor.

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