Diplomatic love connections

Libya's Qaddafi Gave Condi Rice $212,000 In Gifts

In its final months in office, the Bush administration made out pretty well in odd and exotic gifts from foreign leaders - including diamond jewelery, a taxidermied lion, and Israeli bike shorts.

One of the most generous gift-givers was Libya's Moamar Qaddafi, who seemed particularly grateful for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Tripoli last year, giving her gifts with a total value of $212,225, including a diamond ring and a locket with his own picture inside, according to a newly-released State Department report.

Oh my, seems like international diplomacy is a little sexier than I originally thought. Diamond lockets with Qaddafi's picture inside, bike shorts, free dead lions, mountain bikes, saddles.....it's all so sordid. In return for the gift the US Government reportedly sent Qaddafi a chain with a diamond encrusted characture of the head of Condi, not unlike the kind Rick Ross (the boss) sports. In return for getting the bike short from Ehud Olmert, Bush strutted around the Oval Office in them, picking up briefing documents that has been "accidentally" dropped and generally just acting sexy for Ehud. Hey, that Roadmap to Peace doesn't come without the traveling of some hard miles.

In many cases the reason given for the acceptance of these gifts was "Non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and U.S. Government", but in some cases the reason was "Can you believe how cool this shit is? There's no way I'm letting those eggheads at the Smithsonian get their grubby nerd mitts on this." I should have gotten into this diplomatic racket, I could use cooler stuff. But I thought you should know this just so you're not surprised when Condi and Muammar get married in Tripoli next summer. I wonder what gifts they'll get from foreign governments then.