We all know Obama has been exploring his Irish roots but there were at least a couple extremely awkward moments. The first clip is pretty funny but to me the most noticeable thing is the clang sound the car makes when it bottoms out. The second clip is just absolutely cringe inducing.
Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bskSTXC_jM&feature=related
Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCRC9tHyoQ&feature=player_embedded

yeah the toast is difficult to watch. on a human level i never like to see something like that happen to anyone.

I like to watch stuff like that happen to other people and be thankful it's not me.

Oh, God. I guess he was also off by three years when he signed a guest book.



I can see being off by a year. I'll sometimes do that even late in a year but three? Well, 2008 was a good year for him.

I found this pretty funny. It's nice to be reminded that the President is a human being like the rest of us.

Remember when Bush puked on the Japanese Prime Minister? I'm having a hard time thinking of too many more embarrassing overseas Presidential moments, right now, though.

Oh, well there was the whole shoe incident with the second President Bush... I can't think of anything ridiculous happening to Clinton. The purpose of this thread should be to find clips of American politicians making asses of themselves in front of foreign people of importance.

I don't get it, what's going on in the second video.
Remember that one time Bush Jr. made the entire world hate America?

Obama flubbed the toast and the band probably interpreted his pause as the time to start playing their national anthem. He then continued his toast while everyone else was silently observing God Save the Queen. You can see that the queen is trying to set him straight. Once it appears that he gets it, he seems to have a "pouty-boy" look on his face. I don't know if he'll make any excuses for the incident but I suppose people will blame the band, kind of like how Roberts took the blame when Obama flubbed the first few words of the oath which then threw Roberts off as well.

Oh, and I think GWB only really made our enemies hate us, not that they didn't already. Obama is managing to turn our allies against us.

Sure, GWB only made your enemies hate you, that's if you consider every other country in the world to be your enemy.

This. If anything Obama has started to turnaround to nicities again.

Also none of this is as bad as that time Bush was here for that G8 conference at Gleneagles and ran over a policeman.

I thought that the media had made it clear (later in the day) that President Obama wasn't in the limousine. The only thing disappointing about this particular incident is that the first black president doesn't have hydraulics. He should've been able to raise that ***** up & bounce on out of there in style while blasting some "Common" on his subs.

This would have been EPIC!!!

also i believe toasts to the queen are typically short and to the point. like real short... as in "to her majesty the queen." at that point the band likely thought the toast was done.

You can really tell when TOTUS isn't present.

A car that bottoms out and someone forgetting the proper way to toast the Queen is the most obvious sign of a lack of teleprompter I've ever seen, for sure.

Stuck up Brits. No wonder we revolted.

Well, I was responding directly to Darth_Alran's comment (which didn't mention the Beast he wasn't in) which related to the way he stumbled and flubbed the toast. He's usually well spoken when TOTUS is with him.

Most people are well spoken when they actually have a speech prepared. This is a common factor amongst all politicians and public figures. And virtually everyone reads off of note cards or has a teleprompter. I really don't understand why you think it's a big deal that President Obama uses a teleprompter.

I don't. Glenn Beck uses several every night on his television program. Obama had the toast prepared and you can see him looking down to read it. He just can't deliver well without TOTUS (which also is usually not prominently featured when it does accompany him).

I love this picture of him giving a speech in an elementary school classroom:

Yeah, that's a wide angle of the part that was taped for a televised speech. That was not the speech he was giving to the kids in the class. When he had the teleprompter going there weren't even kids in the room. There were nothing but photographers and journalists in there, which makes it no different than any other speech or press conference.

And why would they feature it prominently? Do you expect them to cut away to show the teleprompter?

I was gonna post a long thing about how Obama is by not, by far, the first politician to use a teleprompter, but then I remembered this:

Who cares if he uses a teleprompter anyway? Nothing wrong with being well prepared.
Certainly beats sounding like Bush

This is seriously the best. Gonna have to steal some of his lines next time I hear some ****ty discussion about the mid-east.

Well that explains the war. And the other war.

Yknow the toast thing wasn't really his fault anyway, it's the band's.

Let's face it. In the states only hipsters & wealthy people even toast (except for maybe at weddings). It isn't something that most of us do on a consistent basis. Most Americans probably think that "toasting" is when you sword-fight with a dollar baguette from Walmart.

Frankly, a gaffe like this is likely easily forgiven and understood by all parties. It made for an uncomfortable moment, and no doubt he's kicking himself, but I'd rather that than our previous president, who made us all look like hardheaded fools.

You people don't understand! If you think this is just a minor screwup and no big deal it's because you're a liberal apologist! This is proof that President Obama has no idea what he's doing!

People say that Bush made the world hate America and Americans and I understand that, but for me it was never really that I hated or even disliked Americans as a whole, it was more that I felt compassion for the large number of reasonable Americans who never supported the Bush administration, and through my own frustration as someone who's never even been there I could only imagine how frustrated they were about all of what was going on. On top of that, through all the actions carried out and the biblical rhetoric used to justify them, my perception of America changed from thinking you were "the good guys" (like in movies, of course I was also younger and more naive) into seeing you in part as a sort of global bully who was also kind of insane.

It was all really rather scary, and I kept hoping for America to return to something like I remembered it as from the Clinton era. I'm too ignorant of American history to actually debate who was the worst president you guys ever had, but for now I can't think of anyone who did more damage than the younger Bush.

On a more on-topic note, when you consider the countless not so harmful, but embarrassing blunders by Bush in his public appearances, I feel there's really no contest when it comes to who was the king of "awkward" and "cringe-inducing". Obama definitely comes off as more comfortable and tactful in presenting himself than Bush ever did. Posting these videos and having a laugh about them is fine, I'm only adding my thoughts on this comparison because it was brought up.

It's both. While the band leader botched the timing, Obama had assumed it was like "a soundtrack" to his speech (he said that to Nick Clegg. Why Nick Clegg is talking to Obama is beyond me. The tories should not be letting him out), showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the way toasts work in British State Dinners, or, as Wookie would say, grounds for impeachment.

I was under the impression that the music always means stop. Yknow, like the Oscars.

Americans like to live their lives like an action movie at all time. Music in the background, wavering flag behind them, etc, etc.

"wavering flag" is a kinda funny concept

Well it's wavering until the hero, backed by an excellent musical background, gets up in slow motion and firmly plants it to it's simply waving. Then they make a speech with said music in the background and the flag waving.

lol@Lawrence Fishticks

Yeah because we're the only ones in the world with that problem

*cough*
Africa
*cough*

Every president has been the worst president ever.

My friends and I toast at nearly every large gathering we have. For good and for bad reasons.

Well you really burned Mentat there what with your friends and you accounting for all of America.

Says the man that stereotyped britain based on one family earlier in the thread.

Bunch o' hipsters.

Yes, because that was what I was trying to do.