Who's in charge of this stuff?

An Ipod, they gave the Queen of England an Ipod! Barack Obama and Michell Obama visited Queen Elizabeth and gave her an Ipod, and she already has one! You don't give someone of that stature an electronic toy, you give them something meaningful. But apparently whoever is in charge of these gift exchanges has again dropped the ball. What an embarrassment. You may recall President Obama's previous visit to London to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The gift exchange was equally disastrous in it's thoughtlessness. President Obama gave Gordon Brown a box set of classic American movies on DVD in a format that is not compatible with the DVD player Prime Minister Brown most likely has. What did Prime Minister Brown give President Obama. Ohhhh, nothing special really, just an ornamental pen holder carved out of the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship the HMS Gannet. And that of course goes with a desk made of oak from her sister ship the HMS Resolute that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880. But wait, there's more, also a framed commission of the HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. Just some things he threw together at the last minute. I ignored this story when it first came to light. I chalked it up to him being new on the job, still learning the international ropes so to speak. It can no longer be ignored, we can now see they learned nothing, and embarrassed us yet again. My advice to President and Mrs. Obama, find somebody to help you with the gift thing before this becomes insulting.