Why Not Just a Best Buy Gift Card, Barack?

This should be a national embarrassment:

As he headed back home from Washington, Gordon Brown must have rummaged through his party bag with disappointment.

Because all he got was a set of DVDs. Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

[...]

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Meh. It's the thought that counts, right? I hear President Sarkozy in France is jacked for his first visit from President Obama because our state gift is expected to be sixteen slices of Kraft singles. (If you notice my sarcasm, it is because I'm laying it on pretty thick.)

D-list stars in Hollywood get better bling bags than the leader of the nation with which we've had the tightest relationship for years. Maybe I'm just too dumb to undestand dear leader's method of repairing those foreign relationships destroyed by Bush et al.

But maybe I'm too hard on the President. Perhaps after all of our recent spending, 25 DVD's is all we could afford to give.