Delegating tasks is one thing but would someone please explain how it would not be entirely Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fault for dropping the ball on this one? A US Secretary of State tries to be cute and offer the Russian Foreign Minister a gift featuring one word in Russian and gets it wrong. Another fine example that the Obama Administration is amateur hour.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
‘Reset Button’
Vice President Joe Biden said last month that it was time for the two countries to hit the “reset button” in their relations, a phrase often repeated since. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev likewise said he was “reassured” by the positive signals coming from Washington since Barack Obama’s victory.
Clinton played on Biden’s phrase for photographers at the beginning of her meeting with Lavrov, handing him a green-wrapped box complete with bow and containing a mock “reset” button.
The two laughed as Lavrov explained that the mistranslated Russian word on the button didn’t say “reset,” as intended, but rather “overcharge.”
“We won’t let you do that to us,” Clinton said in response, before getting more serious. “We mean it and we look forward to it.”
Lavrov smiled and thanked her.
“We’re going to push the reset button of constructive cooperation,” Lavrov told reporters after the meeting.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, Democrats, liberal, Clinton, United States, Russia, obama, hillary, Foreign Affairs.
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March 8th, 2009 at 12:06 am
I totally sympathize with Secretary Clinton; I made a similar mistake due to language and cultural barriers with a new neighbor last summer. . .
March 8th, 2009 at 4:00 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:
http://rebellionbrewery.com/?p=312