Over on my “short post” blog today I linked a story about the gift President Obama gave to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown–25 of the awesomest DVDs this country has to offer. I mean, how cool is that? I wanted that for Christmas, but I don’t have any friends or relatives that can pull those kinds of strings.
It would have been cool if Mr. Obama could have swung a Wii Fit, but those are tough to find.
Ok, seriously? DVDs? I think, as a general rule, you should stray away from giving heads of state gifts that you can get on Amazon or in the White House Gift Shop, although the James Bond Blu-ray set or a Kindle 2 would be cool. But I’ve received better gifts than DVDs in the past year, and I couldn’t get elected to the board of my HOA.
So, of course, I have some ideas for future gifts that are better than DVDs if the President ever decides to actually give something thoughtful or significant. These are all things I think the President could actually pull off:
- An external hard drive with all the music he downloaded back in the Napster days
- Offer to help him move, and actually follow through
- Tickets to an Oprah taping (transportation to Chicago not included)–bonus if you can swing a lifetime membership to the Oprah Book Club
- Let him “ride bitch” on one of the motorcycles in the Presidential motorcade
- Offer to let him crash on the couch for the weekend
- Autographed photo of the cast of Facts of Life
- A couple of four day passes to Disney
- Cubs tickets
- Hook it up for him to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (on a non-trading day)
- Teach him how to work the teleprompter