The latest official White House photograph showing President Barack Obama with his foot on his desk has created a mini-maelstrom of right-wing angst.

The desk in question was a gift from Britain's Queen Victoria in 1880, crafted from the timbers of the sunken Arctic Rescue Ship the HMS Resolute, and Obama has been snapped with his shoes atop its surface on several occasions.

So had President George W. Bush. But that hasn't stopped conservative partisans from venting their spleens in the direction of the Oval Office after Matt Drudge featured the photo at the top of his opinion-shaping digital real estate.

'Check out Drudge Report pic of the President with his foot on the desk,' Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs tweeted. 'The White House released it mistakenly thinking it's a cool image.'

National Review contributor Greg Pollowitz was willing to give Obama a pass, but only because his furniture abuse was less egregious than that of another Democratic president.

'I really don't think it's a big deal that Obama had his foot on the "Resolute" desk,' he wrote on Twitter, 'considering what Clinton did to it.'

But others made pure fun of the photo without drawing a political statement from it.

'Obama, speaking to Boehner, is simultaneously doing a Captain Morgan on the Roosevelt [sic] Desk and John Wayne draw,' tweeted a New York City lawyer.

Beckett Adams, a business writer for conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck's news website The Blaze, captioned the photo with an imaginary quote from the president.

'And then I was like, "Pew! Pew! Pew!" and I got Bin Laden,' he wrote

In April, a series of official White House photographs brought together by Vanity Fair showed the 'lean-back' nature of Barack Obama's presidency.

The pictures reveal that Obama often exhibits relaxed body language in stressful situations, with legs crossed and a knee raised, or his feet on his desk.

In the pictures Obama can be seen discussing policy matters with his aides, none of whom is ever as relaxed – or reclined – as the commander-in-chief.

One such moment of relaxation provided some diplomatic tension during Obama's first year in office.

The president was photographed with his feet on his desk, soles pointing toward the camera, while he discussed a planned speech in Cairo with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June 2009.

Obama had been carrying on tense negotiations with Netanyahu over the status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the soles of his feet were seen as an insult

'A photo released by the White House, which shows Obama talking on the phone with Netanyahu on Monday, speaks volumes,' read one editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz 

'The president is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, as though he were dictating to Netanyahu. ... As an enthusiast of Muslim culture, Obama surely knows there is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of one's shoes at another person. Indeed, photos of other presidential phone calls depict Obama leaning on his desk, with his feet on the floor.'

A plaque on the front of the presidential desk desk explains that the HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1852.

The vessel was then 'discovered and extricated' by American whaler Captain Buddington in September 1855.

Resolute was then refurbished and sent to Britain as a 'token of goodwill and friendship' from the president and people of the United States.

When the ship was later broken up, Queen Victoria sent a desk made out of its timbers back to the U.S. as a 'memorial of the courtesy and loving kindness which dictated the offer of the gift of the "Resolute"'

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a door built in the desk to hide the sight of his leg braces. The Resolute was first moved into the Oval Office by Jackie Kennedy in 1961, where an iconic photo later caught JFK Jr. playing hide and seek underneath it.