Hillary Clinton has inadvertently stumbled on the rallying cry for the Obama Administration:
GENEVA—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving him a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations.
She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.
“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.
Instead of "reset," Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”
Now that you mention it, it does feel as if we're all being overcharged by the Obama administration.
A trillion in spending here . . .
OVERCHARGE!
A trillion in spending there . . .
OVERCHARGE!
A billion for the Palestinians . . .
OVERCHARGE!
A plunging Dow, wiping out retirement and college funds . . .
OVERCHARGE!
Cap 'n trade that will cause energy prices to soar and potentially bankrupt the coal industry . . .
OVERCHARGE!
New, higher taxes for small business owners . . .
OVERCHARGE!!
It's a new day in town, and Obama has his finger firmly planted on the red "OVERCHARGE" button.
OVERCHARGE!!
It's not quite as catchy as Braveheart's FREEEEE-DOMMMMMM! But it will do.
OVERCHARGE!!!!!!!!
____________________
Update 1: Ed Morrissey has some painfully appropriate comments on the gaffe itself:
Yeah, I’m sure Lavrov laughed. Later, he probably told his deputy, “Tell the crypto guys they can take it easy.”
Some will say, Come on, it’s just a light moment, but let’s think about what Hillary was doing here. She was making fun of the previous administration’s diplomacy with her “reset” button, a rather nasty piece of work. I’ll bet the Bush administration and Condi Rice would have gotten the translation correct before making that joke — and I’d bet even more money they wouldn’t have thought to make fun of Hillary’s husband in that fashion in the first place.
Can we get a reset button?
He's right. It wasn't just that Hillary Clinton and her staff committed a diplomatic gaffe. They committed the gaffe while in the process of engaging in a mean-spirited ridicule of their predecessors' diplomacy. Who looks like a fool now?
Update 2: Commenter Gina (no relation) adds this in the comments below:
"Will someone explain to me why the Secretary of State is giving the Russian Foreign Minister a Jack the Joke Shop hand buzzer? Accurate translation or not, who thought it was a good idea to begin with? What is this? The Three Stooges? Gag Time for Hillary?
Can you imagine Condi Rice doing something so lame, so stupid, so devoid of meaning, purpose, or strategy?"
This doesn't surprise me at all. She has always been a puppet on someone else's string, and just proved how inept she really is. Come on, you have an entire state department behind you (with experienced translators) and you can't come closer than that? Oh my god, we are in so much trouble. This lady has visited the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Israelis and now this?
And these folks got excited about the world opinion of America under the last president America ever had, President Bush?
This is like a bunch of 16 year old's in a bar trying to get served! What a joke!
Posted by: comsense08 | March 06, 2009 at 06:11 PM
A Freudian slip by Team Obama?
Or, should that be a fraudian slip?
Posted by: William Teach | March 06, 2009 at 07:20 PM
Will someone explain to me why the Secretary of State is giving the Russian Foreign Minister a Jack the Joke Shop hand buzzer? Accurate translation or not, who thought it was a good idea to begin with? What is this? The Three Stooges? Gag Time for Hillary?
Can you imagine Condi Rice doing something so lame, so stupid, so devoid of meaning, purpose, or strategy?
Hillary makes Obama a better executive than Bush who chose Condaleeza Rice? I don't think so.
Posted by: Gina | March 06, 2009 at 09:55 PM
If memory serves, Ms. Rice is fluent in Russian. Something that no doubt the smartest woman in the world knows better than to bother with.
Posted by: Steve Poling | March 08, 2009 at 03:08 AM
The Associated Press would like Americans to believe that our representatives have no clue what they are doing. Judging from comments on the various message forums Americans are gullibly buying the simplistic explanation that our State department supposedly doesn’t know how to translate the word “reset” into Russian. Nonsense! The Russian word peregruzka appears at the top of the button, spelled in latin letters. If this was meant to be a literal translation, why would the letters be in Latin? The english translation for this word is “overload” and anyone that knows how to type a few letters into an online translation website can easily figrue that much out. An english word appears below the button and that word is “reset”. These words do very much make sense together: when something is overloaded (like a circuit), you reset it.
Continued here:
rebellionbrewery.com/?p=312
Posted by: rebellionbrewery.com | March 08, 2009 at 12:18 PM