The President of Brazil gets the Obama treatment:
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — His meet and greet with the U.S. president was bumped to Saturday, and when the White House announced his official visit, they misspelled his name.
I was hoping they’d misspelt it as “Lulu.” And given him the DVD of To Sir With Love. Dubbed into Spanish.
By the way, a few years ago The Economist did a cover story on Brazil headlined “The Meaning Of Lula.” The following week, the letters page included this short missive from Asif Niazi:
Sir, The ‘meaning of Lula’ in Urdu is penis.
Good thing, Hillary didn’t attempt another of those amusing bilingual push-button gags.
Meanwhile, following its success with Barack Obama, the White House Teleprompter has begun diversifying its clientele:
WASHINGTON – Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given…
But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.
This sounds like the beginning of a Twilight Zone episode. Is the Teleprompter really the brains of the operation? And, if so, why hasn’t it nominated a new Deputy Treasury Secretary?
[UPDATE: I’ve had a ton of e-mails going, “You do know they speak Portuguese in Brazil?” Er, yes. That’s the joke: The Obama Gift Czar gets everything wrong. Honestly. Do I have to come round and sing The Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook in the original Portuguesistani?]