One of the most iconic scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the one at the end where the Ark of the Covenant is put in a large crate and filed away in a gargantuan government storehouse filled with thousands of other boxes, never to be seen again. When I was an undergrad, one of my more left-wing professors criticized this scene as right-wing propaganda that unfairly portrays government as wasteful. It turns out that the scene was more accurate than either Steven Spielberg or my professor knew:
Al Kamen of the Washington Post details some of the ridiculous ceremonial gifts George W. Bush received as president: a riding coat, a samovar, Moser crystal champagne flutes, a silver sword “with elaborate detailing and carnelian stones.” Why the taxpayers of Australia had to pay for an $852 fishing rod given to a man who’s already quite rich is not clear — especially since other nations should know U.S. law forbids the president and cabinet officials from keeping state gifts worth more than a token amount…..
At White House gift-giving ceremonies, there is always an official present who catalogs the gifts and confiscates them once the foreign dignitary departs. The ceremony at which Italian diplomats presented Bush with 18 Marinella and Ferragamo silk ties, paid for with money forcibly extracted from the pockets of Italian taxpayers, must have been a hoot…. Kamen reported former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received a $230,000 diamond-and-sapphire necklace from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Is the Saudi embassy in Washington so dim it doesn’t know U.S. law prevented Rice from keeping the jewelry? Plus that $230,000 didn’t come out of the king’s pocket, it was presumably stolen from the Saudi people…..
There is now a huge swag pile accumulated during Bush’s terms, and the stuff will go to … a government archive. That is, it will be put away in an enormous storage room like the one at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” never to be seen again. Why aren’t the gifts auctioned off to reduce the federal debt? The $495 Montblanc fountain pen given to Bush will be wasted if it’s locked up somewhere. Future historians are not going to study the pen, but somebody might pay money to possess the thing. Same for all gifts to presidents and secretaries of state. Auction them off! The fact that the existence of the gifts is fundamentally stupid is no reason their economic value should be thrown away.
Perhaps a few of these diplomatic gifts are valuable historical artifacts that belong in a museum, as Indiana Jones would say. If so, they should be put in one. The rest are just expensive items that should indeed be auctioned off. Even giving them away in a raffle is better than letting them waste away in some storage facility.
UPDATE: Some commenters claim that auctioning off the gifts would offend foreign governments by making it seem that their gifts weren’t valued. Of course, storing them in some warehouse never to be seen again doesn’t exactly indicate that the US government places any real value on the gifts either. Still, it’s possible that the gifts should only be auctioned off some years after they are given, by which time foreign officials are less likely to keep track of them. Alternatively, the gifts can be donated to charities that can then use the proceeds to help the poor; it would be difficult for foreign opinion to take offense at that.
Ken Arromdee says:
Saudi Arabia is a primitive society that gets to deal with real societies only because it’s lucky enough to have oil. So yes, the Saudis are that dim. Or rather, their traditions assume a primitive society where giving a ruler wealth to make him favor you is not corruption, it’s the natural order. And once they have such traditions, they’ll continue to follow them even when they no longer serve their purpose.
December 23, 2009, 12:59 amD.R.M. says:
Um, Mr. Easterbrook thinks there’s a difference? Where does he think any of the King’s wealth came from?
December 23, 2009, 1:07 amPio says:
Auction them off?? And provoke a diplomatic row when the giving nation sees just how little we appreciate their gift? The value of the gifts is symbolic, as a sign of goodwill, and they are given to the officeholder in their official capacity – I doubt most nations would care that we can’t keep them.
Personally I believe we should do as the Brits do, and let officeholders keep any gifts they actually want so long as they pay the Treasury the assessed value.
December 23, 2009, 1:13 amLTEC says:
One word solution: Regifting.
December 23, 2009, 1:18 amCornellian says:
I just auction every gift I get on eBay and tell the gift givers I’m concerned about avoiding waste. But them I’m not a diplomat or high elected official so I don’t have to care what the gift givers think.
December 23, 2009, 1:31 amIlya Somin says:
Auction them off?? And provoke a diplomatic row when the giving nation sees just how little we appreciate their gift?
And storing it in a box in some warehouse is a greater sign of our appreciation?
December 23, 2009, 1:38 amBlar says:
If these count as waste, wouldn’t it be waste for the gift-giving government, not the gift-receiving government? Once we get them, I don’t think we’d want to do something that could offend the giver, like auctioning them off to the highest bidder. Just add gift exchange to the ceremonial costs of entertaining foreign dignitaries. I’d guess that all the ceremony and symbolism helps a bit with diplomacy, and costs very little compared to what’s at stake.
December 23, 2009, 1:39 amIlya Somin says:
I just auction every gift I get on eBay and tell the gift givers I’m concerned about avoiding waste. But them I’m not a diplomat or high elected official so I don’t have to care what the gift givers think.
Presumably, the gifts you get are not public property or as valuable as those presidents get. So the amount of waste is much less.
December 23, 2009, 1:39 amMichael says:
I think it’s excessively puritanical just to put these things in a warehouse. The main thing is that they are ultimately gifts of state and are the citizens’ property. I see no reason though that if George Bush wanted to do that fly fishing which Cheney said he would do after his term in office that he couldn’t check that $852 fishing rod out and accompany Cheney on a fishing trip. Perhaps after the next president’s term, Bush might want to release some of the gifts for public sale to benefit the Treasury. Ordinary wear and tear or loss should be accepted.
December 23, 2009, 1:40 amIlya Somin says:
If these count as waste, wouldn’t it be waste for the gift-giving government, not the gift-receiving government?
It’s waste for the receiving govt too, because it or its people could have gotten some use out of these objects, but instead they rot away in warehouses, taking up space and providing no value to anybody.
December 23, 2009, 1:40 amCrazyTrain says:
Agree that this is a small example of government waste, but “telling”? In what possible way is this telling? Telling of what?!?!?
December 23, 2009, 1:49 amspudbeach says:
Catergorize this under the heading of “polite fiction”. Everybody knows that these gifts are not to be used, sold, enjoyed, etc., but putting them in a warehouse is more polite than auctioning them, while at the same time not subjecting our leaders to charges of bribery. Sort of like providing two bedrooms for the unmarried house guests — footsteps at night are politely ignored, allowing all to get what they really want.
December 23, 2009, 1:53 amIlya Somin says:
Agree that this is a small example of government waste, but “telling”? In what possible way is this telling? Telling of what?!?!?
It should be obvious, but I’ll spell it out anyway: It’s telling because government can’t avoid substantial waste even when there is a readily available simple way of avoiding it, such as holding an auction or giving the items away to charity.
December 23, 2009, 1:57 amConstantin says:
I don’t know, it seems like letting Barack trade iPods with his speeches for swords and diamond necklaces makes more fiscal sense than all of this other garbage he’s foisting on us.
December 23, 2009, 2:04 amSteve says:
It’s telling because government can’t avoid substantial waste even when there is a readily available simple way of avoiding it, such as holding an auction or giving the items away to charity.
All it proves is that you can’t think of a good reason why an auction isn’t an acceptable alternative. Sure, if we stipulate that there are no reasonable objections to holding an auction, then I guess we’ve proven that government is uniquely feeble-minded, but that’s quite an assumption you’re indulging in.
December 23, 2009, 2:09 amJames says:
Sorry, but this is just a really dumb article. First, the amount of money involved is relatively negligible – especially of the luxury gifts whose ‘value’ is largely perceived value – I haven’t looked, but I’d be surprised if Mont Blanc pens sell on ebay for even half of their airport-shop retail price. Second, the cost of administering such sales would soon overwhelm any actual profit to be had. Third, it’s a slap in the face to the gift givers. Fourth, the items DO have practical diplomatic value – for example, the wearing of a received tie or use of a received pen (such as in signing a treaty) by the president to symbolize ongoing friendship. Fifth, the items do have historical value – I have many times seen gifts of world leaders to one another in museums – the last time I saw this was in Bishkek – understanding the nature of the gifts with historical context allows one to better understand the political climate.
December 23, 2009, 2:15 am11-B.2O/B4 says:
Meh. I just can’t work up any outrage over this. The federal government is a packrat, as much for accountability as the more apathetic/less sinister explanation that it provides jobs and purpose to thousands of federal employees. I mean, the US cavalry still operates breeding farms for horses, which aren’t even used for ceremonial units (those units buy their horses on the open market). We have warehouses full of state-of-the-art 1866 military equipment of dubious usefulness (I don’t see us returning to the cap lock rifled musket anytime soon). Why sell or throw something away when you can build a storage facility (in a political ally’s district of course) and pay locals a standard G-whatever salary to catalog it? The only thing the federal government has ever sold off that springs to my memory is much of its stock of M-1 Garand battle rifles following WWII….and you know what? That sale is ongoing.
December 23, 2009, 2:28 amBorris says:
Jimmy Carter would say that auctioning off gifts given to Obama would be an act of racism.
December 23, 2009, 2:30 amCornellian says:
It should be obvious, but I’ll spell it out anyway: It’s telling because government can’t avoid substantial waste even when there is a readily available simple way of avoiding it, such as holding an auction or giving the items away to charity.
Unless there’s some constitutional barrier I don’t know about, the government is perfectly capable of auctioning off the items or giving them to charity. They just choose not to do so. Perhaps they just know more about diplomacy than you do?
December 23, 2009, 3:55 amptt says:
I’m not sure I would see a $230,000 necklace as a “theft” from the Saudi people. Considering the enormous subsidies provided to the average Saudi, it is at most a reduction of an entitlement, something most folks on here would applaud, no?
December 23, 2009, 4:20 amBlar says:
Even a charity auction might not be good diplomacy – I doubt the Saudis would be happy to see some Hollywood actress show up at the Oscars in jewelry that they gave to the First Lady, even if it had gone through charity. The current policy might not be ideal, but I don’t think that there’s a simple alternative that’s obviously superior. Do we have any idea what other countries do with their gifts?
December 23, 2009, 5:37 amA Small but Telling Example of Government Waste | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] here: A Small but Telling Example of Government Waste Share this [...]
December 23, 2009, 5:51 amLeo Marvin says:
I’m surprised you don’t see why disposing of it publicly might be a more egregious faux pas. Do you think it would also be OK if we re-gifted it to the next head of state who popped in?
December 23, 2009, 6:06 amJim from Albany says:
Um, the Federal Property Act specifically provides for disposal of excess foreign gifts, including the sale of such gifts in any manner chosen by an agency head (40 U.S.C. 704). This presumably includes auction.
In addition, to reassure commenters that we won’t offend heads of state, the Federal Property Act and the various foreign gifts acts that authorize receipt of gifts by political leaders (as required under the Constitution) require that the state department approve of disposal of gifts to ensure such disposal will not offend diplomatic relation.
December 23, 2009, 6:14 amBob_R says:
Sequestering these gifts in a warehouse is a tacit admission of their great value and vast power to corrupt our officials. They are being used in exactly the way they were intended.
December 23, 2009, 7:32 amDarel Finkbeiner says:
If the price of peace/good relations is a tacky bejeweled sword being stored in a warehouse… so be it.
December 23, 2009, 7:57 amJust Dropping By says:
Second, the cost of administering such sales would soon overwhelm any actual profit to be had.
That’s quite absurd. It’s my understanding that police auctions more than cover their operating costs and mint-condition luxury goods/collectibles should bring a good bit more money in than the typical selection of goods at a police auction.
December 23, 2009, 8:56 amarn says:
some are on display, at presidential museums. i’ve been to the LBJ museum at UT-Austin and some of the gifts he received are on display there.
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December 23, 2009, 9:29 amLymis says:
Heck, the Star Trek people made a frigging fortune selling off props, costumes and models from the series….
If the foreign countries don’t want to be offended if we auction off or donate things like diamond and sapphire necklaces that are illegal for the recipient to keep, they can go back to donating things we can actually use, like the Statue of Liberty.
Set up a rotating collection at a new annex of the Smithsonian (another thing they could finance, or maybe just send a Public Architecture Gift Card) that displays for the public the last decade’s worth of diplomatic gifts, all well lit and nicely annotated, and then every year, dispose of the eleven-year-old stuff by either moving it to the permanent collection, to other museums (I like the presidential museum idea) or auctioning it off.
After all, if it is illegal for these to be gifts to individuals, they must by definition be gifts to the entire citizenry, and we have the right to go gawk.
December 23, 2009, 9:32 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
Yes, that’s clearly the “price of peace.” Saudi Arabia will declare war on the U.S. if we sell off some gaudy knickknack and give the money to charity. Sheesh, all you faux-realists are rather odd. We’re not talking about your Aunt Martha, who insists on seeing you wear the tacky sweater she gave you last Christmas. Do you really think diplomats give a crap? They give gifts because it’s protocol, not because they care what we do with those gifts.
December 23, 2009, 9:34 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
Notwithstanding my previous comment, I just don’t think Ilya’s idea is very smart. What charity, exactly, are we going to entrust the Ark of the Covenant to?
December 23, 2009, 9:37 amDudeman says:
Auctioning off the gifts would serve two purposes: raising revenue, and it would give our president another basis to apologize for our arrogance.
Better yet, how about a “white elephant” gift exchange? (Is that racist?) I sure hope I get a high number…..
December 23, 2009, 10:01 amDave N. says:
I suggest the United Jewish Appeal.
December 23, 2009, 10:19 amDave N. says:
Of course, we can always just hold onto gifts and then insult the gift-giver by returning them at some point in the future.
December 23, 2009, 10:24 amDonP. says:
Anyone that thinks an $852 fishing rod is “Exorbitant” hasn’t been shopping at an Orvis store lately.
We’re not talkin’ Zebco spin casting here I’m guessing.
December 23, 2009, 10:35 ampete says:
The Nixon library has the gun Elvis gave him. The Bush library at A&M has a large collection of large solid gold objects that various Arab leaders gave him after the first gulf war. The most impressive one I remember is a solid gold model of an arab village that was about a square foot in size. I do not remember seeing much of interest at the LBJ library.
December 23, 2009, 10:35 amgeokstr says:
A warehouse for storing diplomatic gifts from other nations would probably fit in the foyer of many government warehouses.
I recall reading a story decades ago about one Department or another having $100 million (when that used to actually be considered real money) left in their budget near the fiscal year end. This could have resulted in a cut in their budget for the next year, so they bought $100 million worth of TVs and put them in a warehouse, where they presumably still sit (minus however many disappeared to employees).
December 23, 2009, 10:37 amXanthippas says:
So the government handles unwanted gifts about as well as the rest of us do. That’s just sad.
Merry Christmas!
December 23, 2009, 10:43 amBob from Ohio says:
Jewish National Fund would be great for the Saudi necklace.
December 23, 2009, 10:46 amParatrooperJJ says:
Oh snap!
December 23, 2009, 10:49 amSeaDrive says:
As I recall, the daughters of a President (Nixon? Johnson?) caused a stir by wearing presidential gift jewelry to a ball of some sort. To me, that seemed to be over-the-top political correctness. I should think that the gifts should be available to the President during his term for sensible public PR purposes. Do we think Obama would change his policies if Bo were wearing a custom Italian dog collar?
December 23, 2009, 10:52 amAlpine McGregor says:
I think your professor profoundly missed the point. The last scene of “Raiders” is not meant as a critical comment on government waste; it cleverly implies that the Ark of the Covenant is just one of MANY secret and powerful artifacts hidden away by the government. It’s more of a conspiracy-theory moment.
December 23, 2009, 10:57 amChris Travers says:
If one is going to auction off the gifts, I would suggest holding a day-after-inaguration-day aucton every time the office of the President is handed to a new person. The gifts would still retain their symbolic value and there would be some appropriate setting of expectations to foreign governments.
December 23, 2009, 11:28 amRandy says:
“Sequestering these gifts in a warehouse is a tacit admission of their great value and vast power to corrupt our officials. They are being used in exactly the way they were intended.”
Exactly. The purpose of giving these gifts is to show the respect one leader or gov’t head has for another. It’s the same reason we give gifts during the holidays. Sometimes we care if the gift is used or enjoyed, but half the time I really don’t. I know fully well that many of the gifts I’ve given are regifted, warehoused, ebay’ed or just thrown out. Who cares? The point was made, and I was thanked, and that’s pretty much the end all of gifts. The necklace given to Rice served a similar purpose — to show Saudi esteem for her. They wouldn’t give a hoot what she does with it.
I doubt whether Italian taxpayers really paid much, if anything, for silk ties. The company probably donated them and figured it’s free advertising: Look! Our ties are the only ones good enough to give the leader of the free world! And they show the artistry of Italian goods in general! They are as much PR as anything else.
The problem is the law that prevents our gov’t from accepting anything other than nominal gifts. Who here would prefer to change that so that Rice can keep the necklace? Oh right, no takers on that one.
I do have a problem with historical gifts — things rare, historical, extreme artistry or otherwise museum quality. They should be on loan to the Smithsonian at the least for all to enjoy. That would be in keeping with a democracy.
Of course, the real problem is that the tradition of gift giving arose out of monarchs giving gifts to each other that they did in fact keep. Even then, trouble can arise — who can forget the tennis balls sent from the Dauphin of France to Henry V? Henry repaid the favor with ‘scorn, contempt,’ — and an army.
Perhaps the law should be changed that any gifts given to a government leader, over the nominal amount, are gifts to the American people. That would be in keeping with our democratic principles and would mean they can be deposited with the Smithsonian, which I’m sure would love them. They could have one day an exhibit entitled “Changing fashions in Presidential Gifting: From Swords to iPods”
December 23, 2009, 11:43 amKevinM says:
The final scene of “Raiders,” whatever else it was, was a fairly obvious ripoff of/tribute to the final scene of Citizen Kane.
December 23, 2009, 12:27 pmRandy says:
Also, I suspect the Saudi necklace is ghastly enough that no one would actually want to wear it.
December 23, 2009, 12:49 pmElCid says:
The situation may seem annoyingly wasteful, but auctioning off these gifts would be penny-wise, pound-foolish. The small amount of revenue produced would not be worth the gratuitous insult to foreign leaders.
December 23, 2009, 12:59 pmSigivald says:
On Saudi Arabia, I’ll amplify what ptt said.
Gifts from the Saudi King aren’t “extracted from the people of Saudi Arabia”, because it’s not a taxation-funded state.
It’s a state funded by a state monopoly on oil proceeds, kept intact by immense State subsidies to the “native” population.
(And as to Ilya’s professor’s impression of the Warehouse Scene as “right-wing propaganda that unfairly portrays government as wasteful”… well, I think that says more about the Professor’s ideological blinders than anything else.
My impression, when watching the film, both as a child when it came out, and later as an adult, was that it was Government quite sensibly putting the Ark away where it wouldn’t cause any problems.
Something like that, you don’t use (look what happened when the Nazis did – and I’d suspect, theologically, it wasn’t just because they were Jew-murdering scum, but also because they weren’t Aaronite priests acting on behalf of the Jewish people. It would follow, therefore, that the US Government wouldn’t fare too much better trying to utilise the Ark).
You put it somewhere it will be safe (for you and from being used against you) and let it sit.
The other implication of that scene, though possibly unintended, was that the US Government had acquired a lot of things it wanted kept Safe And Secret for one reason or another…)
December 23, 2009, 1:13 pmGaius Obvious says:
The warehouse of diplomatic gifts is nothing compared to the climate-controlled warehouse of items picked up in front of the Vietnam Memorial, some little more than trash (“bubble gum wrappers and popsicle sticks”, “a bag of M&Ms”) — all cataloged, filed away in locked glass cases, handled with white gloves by degreed curators, and closed to the public.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310444,00.html
December 23, 2009, 1:48 pmhttp://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/11/vif2.memorial.mementos/index.html
wooga says:
They won’t auction the stuff off because I’m sure much of it has been pilfered from storage by government employees. Seriously, a gov’t employee sees a $10,000 piece of jewelry going into storage, where it will remain ‘forever’ and never be checked… and that gov’t employee is going to steal the thing. Think about the amount of theft that occurs at airports, despite the airline employees knowing that private people will actually be looking for their stuff. This will be much, much worse.
Any serious effort to resell items will uncover the theft, and cause a great deal of embarrassment. So it will NEVER happen.
December 23, 2009, 2:06 pmNickM says:
Regift it to the government of Israel?
I do have to quibble about a few points in the original piece. It’s quite possible that the Marinella and Ferragamo ties were donated by those companies for the logical business reason that the advertising/publicity value of having your ties publicly given to the American President far outweighs the cost to the maker of a few ties. The necklace presented to Secretary Rice is the sort of piece that will likely end up in a museum – the Smithsonian’s gems and jewelry collection has plenty of room.
Nick
December 23, 2009, 2:49 pmMike M. says:
A couple of points here…
First, it is doubtful if anything of real value is pilfered by anyone in the Civil Service. We may be lazy scum, but we’re honest lazy scum. Besides, you can bet it’s inventoried.
Second, the idea of establishing collections of ex officio goods for use by the holder of an office is sound. In principle, these senior Government officials are not terribly wealthy (the number of millionaires in Congress and issues of soft graft notwithstanding). Access to these gift goodies costs the taxpayer nothing…but is a useful perk of office.
December 23, 2009, 3:14 pmbellisaurius says:
Why does this kind of feel like wedding gifts? You get a bunch of stuff of ceremonial value (I mean, c’mon, who needs another glass bowl of some sort?), that’s really just going into storage (‘cuz how much glassware can a person put in a china cabinet?). You can’t really ditch it because aunt marge may ask about it, can’t display it for lack of an appropriate place, and you certainly don;t refuse it for want of avoiding offense.
The government’s in a crappy place- there’s not really any good answers since a lot of other cultures believe in the whole gift-giving thing. Perhaps an archaic remnant, but still, one enough people follow to make not following a poor choice.
December 23, 2009, 3:44 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe.
On the other hand, auctioning it off would give plenty of wealthy Birthers a chance to own a piece of the history of the W administration ;-)
December 23, 2009, 3:47 pmDennis N says:
That pretty much sums up my feelings.
Practical and semi-practical stuff should be available on loan to the appropriate officials. You sign the stuff out on hand-receipt, just like you sign for gear from the supply room. It must be turned in or paid for. Minor stuff like the Mont-Blanc pen could be used, say for treaty or legislature signings, if thought to be diplomatically correct. I don’t see why a president can’t wear donated neck-ties, or diplomatically use them to tie up Hefty-bags of garbage.
Obviously, some stuff is kept on display, or returned to insult former allies. Other materials is probably already loaned to presidential libraries or displayed at the Smithsonian.
They’ve sold off millions of weapons from rifle muskets through M1s. I have a M1917 and an ’03-A3 The Director of Civilian Marksmanship has disposed of vast numbers of weapons. I believe the current lot of M1s being sold by ODCM (the semi-public successor to DCM) have been bought back from the Greeks.
They also sell off vast quantities of surplus stock through the various property disposal offices. I believe the contact point is http://www.govliquidation.com/, or some variant on that. Through them, you can literally buy anything from mess-hall garbage (you must promise to return the mis-dumped spoons and forks) to aircraft carriers (for scrapping only).
December 23, 2009, 4:29 pmreadery says:
Auctioning (or otherwise selling or publicly getting rid of) the gifts would insult the foreign dignitaries who gave them. As would any references to them being “stolen”
Putting things in storage manages to comply with Congress’s laws while avoiding war. Law professors don’t have to worry about avoiding war. They are free to express their contempt for the people giving the gifts and to sprinkle their discourse with references to their having being “stolen” without fear of consequences. But Presidents don’t have such luxuries.
The current solution may be the best available under real-world constraints. Congress is heeded without giving disrespect to foreign dignitaries and countries. Any “solution” which fails to accomplish both goals is no solution at all, and fails address the problems which a President needs to be responsible for.
December 23, 2009, 7:17 pmChris Travers says:
ReaderY
Probably best to set expectations appropriately.
“Gifts will be kept until the office of the presidency is handed to a new person and then will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.” Some funds will be available to donate some items to public museums.
If the expectations are set as such, I fail to see how this would offend foreign governments. A lot of it has to do with timing and expectations.
December 23, 2009, 7:36 pmLeo Marvin says:
Do you remember what ensued when Richie Aprile gave Tony Soprano the leather jacket he took off Rocco DiMeo?
December 23, 2009, 7:59 pmDavid Sucher says:
Based on the WaPo article, which mentions nothing from administrations prior to 2000, it sounds to me as if the problem is not “government waste” but “GW Bush thoughtlessness.”
December 23, 2009, 8:14 pmEli Rabett says:
Can’t you clowns google. The gifts end up at the presidential libraries
It’s these nonsense death panel fits that make us so fond of our wingnut friends.
December 23, 2009, 9:29 pmEli Rabett says:
Since everyone here has a jones for Jimmy Carter, here are some of the gifts in HIS presidential library
December 23, 2009, 9:37 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » A SMALL, BUT TELLING, example of government waste…. says:
[...] A SMALL, BUT TELLING, example of government waste. [...]
December 23, 2009, 10:08 pmic says:
KA: (the guy who is not as dim as the Saudis): “their traditions assume a primitive society where giving a ruler wealth to make him favor you is not corruption, it’s the natural order. And once they have such traditions, they’ll continue to follow them even when they no longer serve their purpose.”
Please illuminate the difference between the most advanced society’s campaign contributions to politicians in return for porks of taxpayers’ money from politicians, and the primitive society’s bribing the ruler in return for favor.
The only difference I can see is: the primitive society is more honest, the people are smarter. They know what corruption is, and call corruption corruption. In the most advanced society, the people are too dim to recognize corruptions and are fooled by politicians’ rhetorics: such as campaign contributions (the primitives call that briberies), earmarks (the primitives call that pay back).
December 23, 2009, 10:32 pmConcerned Citizen says:
They should melt all the gold items and use it to plate all the tungsten bars they’re hoarding at Fort Knox.
December 23, 2009, 10:32 pmPacRim Jim says:
I find myself in the unaccustomed role of defender of Saudi Arabia, but I must mention that thousands of Saudis earned university degrees in the West. So, no, they are not unaware of American laws. Keep in mind that Saudi oil revenue is so high that the government has what the French call an embarrassment of riches, so a few thousand for a pro forma gift is pocket change.
December 23, 2009, 10:39 pmic says:
Concerned Citizen: Why waste the gold? The Chinese are not stupid they know gold plated tungsten bars when they see them and will not accept them as payments of our debts. Anyway, what they are hoarding at Fort Knox is Al Gore’s global warming hot air.
December 23, 2009, 10:46 pmkcom says:
“When I was an undergrad, one of my more left-wing professors criticized this scene as right-wing propaganda that unfairly portrays government as wasteful.”
Your professor was a moron.
The meaning of the final scene was quite clear, and it had nothing to do with politics. The point about the Ark was that it was too dangerous to be used – by anyone. So not only did they need to hide it from any potential enemies, they also needed to hide it from themselves (or potential miscreants in their own government). What they were doing was creating a giant “needle in a haystack” scenario. They were building a cavernous warehouse of thousands of identical boxes (or close enough), only one of which would contain the Ark. They were making it as difficult as possible to find, even if you knew where it was hidden. It would be very difficult for one person or a small group of persons to go through that entire warehouse opening every box undetected. So, even if someone went looking, they’d be stopped before they had any chance (or more than the slimmest of chances) of actually finding the Ark.
The alternate scenario, storing it in some spectacularly remote cave somewhere, for instance, wouldn’t work because the hiders would know exactly where it was. With the warehouse, all you have to do is get a series of unrelated crews in there to randomly move the boxes around and soon enough the one with the Ark would be “lost” forever somewhere in the pile.
This is also why the dream of a nuclear free world is a pipe dream. There’s no giant warehouse of identical boxes in which to put the knowledge of how to build a bomb so that you can seal it away forever. Someone will always know where that knowledge is. They’ll always know the right box.
December 23, 2009, 10:50 pmSteve in Philly says:
In theory, these are gifts to the American people, right? So _give_ them to the American people. At the end of every president’s term of office, have a national lottery. Entry is automatic with a SS number. You could be the one who gets that jeweled Saudi sword! And how could the gifting countries complain, after all, the gifts were to America, right?
December 23, 2009, 11:09 pmRandy says:
I know a few drag queens who would kill for that Saudi necklace. They probably already have the matching headpiece.
December 23, 2009, 11:27 pmSam Wexler says:
Why is Obama allowed to keep the emolument of the Nobel Peace Prize? It should be sent to the treasury. It should not be given to various charities in Obama’s name because that will accrue a benefit to him personally.
December 23, 2009, 11:31 pmJust like returned campaign donations become charitable gifts to various charities which will feel gratitude to Obama personally. Therefore he benefits from others’ illegal acts. A no lose situation for him
F. R. says:
As a matter of fact, historians DO study these gifts, as a matter of fact, I was working at Jimmy Carter National Historic Site last week and photographed an elaborately caved “Last Supper” sculpture give to President Carter from Yassir Arafat for study. It’s all a matter of time before these gifts become interesting I suppose.
December 23, 2009, 11:37 pmRon Nord says:
With as many thieves in Washington DC why would you think the gifts haven’t already been stolen by the elected.
December 23, 2009, 11:41 pmCountrylawyer says:
In 1986, I went to visit Konrad Adenauer’s house outside Bonn. On the walls were oil paintings by Eisenhower and Churchill. Under current U.S. rules those paintings would be somewhere in a warehouse. These rules are silly. Just silly. They are playground-level attempts to pacify whom the rules’ authors believe to be rubes. If the concern is to prevent the recipient from excercising his/her official power for the benefit of the donor, then why not delay personal possession of the item for, say, a decade or so after the last date on which the recipient last holds a position of trust or confidence under the laws of the U.S? On the other hand, since sunlight is the best disinfectant, why not permit the recipients to keep the articles, immediately they relinquish their office, but subject to disclosure upon donation? I mean, either we do or do not trust the feller we elect president to ride herd upon his senior officials, or trust or not the jolly lads for whom we trot down to the courthouse or wherever to vote and send them to the Capitol. If we do, then there should be no issue about the gifts. If we do not, then we should re-examine for whom we vote, irrespective of party or policy. A crook is a crook is a crook, whether he gets a blessing from DailyKos, FireDogLake, or some diametrically opposed outfit, or anyone else. I can respectfully, lovingly, and in good faith disagree with anyone. But a crook I cannot abide, and should not be asked to suffer, no matter his partisan affiliation.
December 24, 2009, 12:28 amWhitehall says:
Gifts to an official in the American governments are properly only gifts to the citizens of the US.
This is a republic and the elected officials serve at our leisure and at our service. They are employees and agents of the electorate.
The problem is that other countries still retain the notion of potentate, as in power flowing from the person. This is poison in a republic and whatever we citizens can do to suppress that notion in concept, thought, or deed the better off we’ll be.
That said, they are gifts and such is the international diplomacy tradition so they must be accepted – but only as gifts to the citizens. Then, keep them 5 years, give some to museums, and auction the rest.
We really DON’T want to encourage this silliness.
December 24, 2009, 1:03 amRich Rostrom says:
Am I the only one who noticed the absurdity of a sportswriter pontificating on government policy?
David M. Nieporent says:
Yes, that’s clearly the “price of peace.” Saudi Arabia will declare war on the U.S. if we sell off some gaudy knickknack and give the money to charity.
No one is saying that a foreign government will declare war because of the handling of its presentation. But there are lots of lesser problems that could arise.
Why ever give unnecessary offense?
The U.S. can use the cooperation of (for instance) Saudi Arabia in many areas, where the stakes could be billions of dollars, or thousands of lives. Or more often millions of dollars (only millions – who cares) or the life or custody of a child or a criminal.
Compared to even these lesser stakes, the cost of not cashing in ceremonial gifts is trivial.
December 24, 2009, 2:01 amNony Mouse says:
The gifts are the only parts of the presidential libraries/museums that are worth seeing to the lay person… and also the only part that they’re really allowed to visit.
December 24, 2009, 2:04 amJohn Dunshee says:
Why the emphasis on the gifts that Bush received?
That warehouse is already full of the gifts that other President’s and government officials have received.
Why not auction off things that previous Presidents got. Something that was given to Reagan might fetch a better price that something that Clinton got.
Or it might turn out that the Clintons kept all the stuff.
December 24, 2009, 3:43 amLarry Braverman says:
the idea of donating items to charities so that the charities can auction them off is a good one. But one might draw the line at donating a $230K necklace- that might have to go to a museum instead.
Of course, the Brits don’t have this problem, since our obtuse rookie President gifted the PM and his family with DVDs and cheap plastic toys from the White House Gift Shop.
December 24, 2009, 4:05 amandy says:
Would it kill you to post “SPOILER ALERT” at the beginning of the post?
December 24, 2009, 4:19 amAndrew Lale says:
Sadly, all this post does is underscore your shaky grasp of history. The giving of gifts by visiting dignitaries, Kings, heads of state and even traders is extremely ancient. It is part of the ritual activity of state visits, and has been for thousands of years. It matters not a jot who eventually gets the gift, if anyone, or if it ends up in a warehouse. It is a symbol the desire to be seen as friendly rather than hostile. It doesn’t matter who paid for it either. What matters is that a gift was proffered, and that good form was observed. Protocol is still important, although somebody should have explained that to Obama is small words.
December 24, 2009, 6:55 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
But it’s his personal prize; he certainly didn’t win it for anything he has done as president. So it shouldn’t really count.
December 24, 2009, 7:35 amNV Smith says:
I seem to be missing something. I find it hard to believe that we have a separate storage system for official gifts. One assumes that the goodies are kept in a secure storage facility that already exists and that they are archived by custodians of the appropriate level who already work for the government. This being the case, where is the outrageous waste? What percentage of storage volume and employee time is dedicated to caring for these baubles? On the other hand, go find the warehouses full of carbon paper and typewriter ribbons that I bet are still squirreled away… this “electricity” thing is just a passing fad, you know.
December 24, 2009, 8:35 amGeorge Gordon says:
I can tell that no one commenting on this article so far is someone who frequents small regional and county museums of the USA. The US National Archives does in fact warehouse all gifts by foreign governments to US officials. But the gifts do not necessarily remain warehoused and unseen.
Small museums around the country supplement their regular collection by borrowing the gifts being warehoused by the US Nation Archives. I have personally seen gifts made to everyone from the Secretary of Defense to past US Presidents & Vice-Presidents on display in various county seats in Midwestern states. It’s often a very eclectic mix of items. I believe I’ve seen the Order of the Nile medal presented to Jimmy Carter. As well as chess sets and cutlery given to cabinet officials.
Oh, don’t forget that a President or other official can purchase any of these gifts at their value as assessed by the National Archives. It’s a very prestigious happenstance for a country to be able to say a president made the effort to purchase their nation’s gift for his own use.
I didn’t have time to do a lot of research to back up my claims. But most of the meat around who can borrow archived items is in NARA directive 1701, cited below. And I include a squib from U Texas about presidents purchasing gifts from foreign nations.
http://www.archives.gov/foia/directives/nara1701.html#1701_29
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/gifts.html
1701.29 Who is authorized to receive a loan of original holdings for an exhibit?
a. NARA units and non-NARA museums, archives, historical societies and other institutions that meet NARA’s loan requirements (see ADMIN. 201, app. 13A, NARA Exhibition Standards for Archival Materials, and NISO Draft Standard for Environmental Conditions for Exhibiting Library and Archival Materials) and of its exhibition serves to increase public awareness of NARA and its holdings, rights of citizens, actions of Federal officials, or the national experience; or
b. The President, Vice President, former Presidents or Vice Presidents or donors, or their designated representative.
December 24, 2009, 8:57 amafarrago» Blog Archive » study the pen says:
[...] “At White House gift-giving ceremonies, there is always an official present who catalogs the g…. [...]
December 24, 2009, 9:30 amBarbara Skolaut says:
“The small amount of revenue produced would not be worth the gratuitous insult to foreign leaders”
When the present President will insult them for free….
December 24, 2009, 9:39 amAjackson says:
Give the gifts to the American people – select tax returns at random and send out the gifts to individual tax filers.
December 24, 2009, 10:11 amJohn Schulien says:
The JFK Museum in Boston has a large exhibit of some of the wildly extravagant gifts that President Kennedy received from foreign dignitaries. It’s the last room of the tour. It’s certainly possible to place some of the more interesting artifacts on display in a museum setting.
December 24, 2009, 10:17 amWhat Does The Government Do With All The Gifts To Public Officials? « Tai-Chi Policy says:
[...] What Does The Government Do With All The Gifts To Public Officials? December 24, 2009 Posted by taoist in Government. Tags: Idiocy, Waste trackback A story of government waste and stupidity. [...]
December 24, 2009, 11:03 amTom the Redhunter says:
“Some commenters claim that auctioning off the gifts would offend foreign governments by making it seem that their gifts weren’t valued. Of course, storing them in some warehouse never to be seen again doesn’t exactly indicate that the US government places any real value on the gifts either.”
They’re in the warehouse now and no one is complaining, right? So the current state of affairs must not offend them much.
I would be in favor of an auction or something to raise money for charity. Understand, though, that this would be mis-reported, by those who have an anti-American agenda. They would mention the auction but not where the money was going.
December 24, 2009, 11:41 amShelby says:
Dear god how I wish that were true.
December 24, 2009, 12:46 pmCanthisbe says:
How about a life estate to the government official who gets the gift? They get to use it during their life at which time the remainder reverts to the United States. Based on the gift, the historical significance, the value, the availability of an appropriate depository (presidential library, etc., appropriate museum), functional utility, the gift could be seen, used, stored or sold off. E.g., Condi can wear Saudi Arabia’s $230,000 necklace to a Stanford graduations and Hoover Institute Gala Christmas parties and when she dies, it goes back to the Federal Crown jewels dept to be available for loan to future First Ladies and Secretaries of State for inaugurations, state dinners, etc.; Bush’s ties, if he spilled gravy on it – goes to Salvation Army.
By the way ,I’m not so sure that the $230,000 for the Saudi necklace was ripped off from the Saudi people. Wasn’t it given as bribe for US to continue its stupid energy policy of dependence on Saudi oil at exorbitant prices and for US military to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq and Muslim terrorists? So didn’t the American people really pay for it?
If all else fails, let’s make it illegal for any foreign government to give any gift other than fruit cake. That way, no one would care what happened to the gifts and we could re-gift them to other foreign leaders as gifts after 25 or 50 years.
December 24, 2009, 12:50 pmJEM says:
Re regifting – if Rahm had gone spelunking in the warehouse to come up with a gift for Gordon Brown, you think he could have done worse than an NTSC DVD set?
If I were some third-world kleptocrat, I might take a message from being handed some foolishly expensive item that turned out to have been given to Dwight Eisenhower by some dictator who was subsequently gifted by his people with a few rounds of 7.62×39 through the skull.
December 24, 2009, 1:19 pmDrew Kelley says:
If Congress passed a bill that stated that all gifts received from foreign governments would be auctioned off at the conclusion of the recipients term, with all proceeds being donated to the charities participating in the Combined Federal Campaign, everyone would be on-notice. If they continue to make gifts under those conditions, so be it.
December 24, 2009, 4:42 pmAnd, all of those past gifts should be auctioned off too.
Anon314 says:
If we offend the hell out of foreign opinion (i.e. foreign criminal regimes), maybe they’ll stop stealing from their own people to give to the pride of our domestic criminal class?
December 24, 2009, 9:04 pmEli Rabett says:
Lord, there are a bunch of hammers in this bag. THE GIFTS ARE DISPLAYED IN MANY MUSEUMS AND AT PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES. What part of that don’t you clowns get.
In addition to gifts to presidents from foreign visitors there are all sorts of gifts from citizens which are held and displayed under the same rules.
Finally if you wonder where the carbon paper went, go visit a GSA auction.
The only interesting question is how air travel has increased the interchange of visits over the last 50 years.
December 25, 2009, 12:49 amGeoffrey Alan Gerlach says:
In Ladislas Farago’s “The Game of the Foxes” about the German Abwehr, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, in the forward he states that he was doing research in the national archives, when he tripped over a foot locker belonging to a Navy Admiral, and when he opened it he found it stuffed full of accounting chits mapping the over seas activites of the Abwehr in the US. So some very valuable items often get stashed away in the oddest of places. gg
December 28, 2009, 5:00 pmLisbeth Fox says:
Washington Post Monday Dec. 28, 2009 stated that diamond-and-saphire jewelry was given to Mrs.Laura Bush…by the King of Saudi Arabia. Was this Ms.Rice’s necklace given by the King of Saudi Arabia that she wasn’t allowed to keep? The Bush family is putting it in his Presidential Library, plus, gifts from the Pope, China, etc.
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March 1, 2010, 6:15 pm