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Hillary's 'Reset Button' Gaffe

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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Somebody's going to be in trouble for making Hillary look silly.
The whole idea seems pretty silly to begin with, even if they had gotten the translation right.

Russian media have been poking fun at the US secretary of state over a translation error on a gift she presented to her Russian counterpart.

Hillary Clinton gave Sergei Lavrov a mock "reset" button, symbolising US hopes to mend frayed ties with Moscow.

But he said the word the Americans chose, "peregruzka", meant "overloaded" or "overcharged", rather than "reset".

Daily newspaper Kommersant declared on its front page: "Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton push the wrong button."

Relations between Washington and Moscow have cooled in recent years over Russia's role in the war in Georgia, US support for the entry of Georgia and Ukraine to Nato, and the planned US missile shield based in central Europe.

'Was it right?'

Efforts to heal the rift got off to an awkward start on Friday as the two sides met in Geneva, when Mrs Clinton presented Foreign Minister Lavrov with a green box tied in green ribbon.

As reporters watched, the US secretary of state assured her Russian opposite number her staff had "worked hard" to ensure it was accurate.

"Was it right?" she inquired with a smile.

"You got it wrong," Mr Lavrov responded, also smiling, before pointing out the mistake.

Despite the embarrassment, the two made light of the moment in front of the cameras and pushed the button together to signify a shared hope for better relations.
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Not a very auspicious start to the new relationship, is it?
 
I have access to a wonderful source: A Russian native from Leningrad St. Petersburg who is also a senior software engineer here.


"So, you've heard about Hillary and the reset button thing?"

"Yes"


peregruzka - "Doesn't really mean 'overcharged', either. It's kind of like 'overloaded', but you know when a jet fighter makes a hard turn and the guy is pressed in by many g forces? That's peregruzka." and "It's something experiencing higher than normal forces."

perezagruzka - This is the computer reset button type reset.
 
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Yeah, I saw that.

I don't understand how they could possibly have gotten that wrong. Surely the U.S. government must have a thousand perfect Russian speakers working for them?
 
Sounds like the kind of story that Drudge Report regulars like to make a big deal out of.
 
maxfrost said:
Sounds like the kind of story that Drudge Report regulars like to make a big deal out of.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you'd have to be some kind of chump to think that
- the US Secretary of State turning one of Biden's more inane mouth-flappings into a gag gift,
- then deciding that high-level US-Russian diplomatic meetings are an appropriate setting for gag gifts,
- then making a point of how you tried really hard to get it right,
- then getting it wrong anyway,
is any kind of big deal at all.

I mean, what's a little blatant incompetence between nuclear superpowers during a period of diplomatic tension and estrangement, right?

Putin's cabal is still going to take the Obama administration really seriously, right?
 
theprestige said:
Yeah, you'd have to be some kind of chump to think that
- the US Secretary of State turning one of Biden's more inane mouth-flappings into a gag gift,
- then deciding that high-level US-Russian diplomatic meetings are an appropriate setting for gag gifts,
- then making a point of how you tried really hard to get it right,
- then getting it wrong anyway,
is any kind of big deal at all.

I mean, what's a little blatant incompetence between nuclear superpowers during a period of diplomatic tension and estrangement, right?

Putin's cabal is still going to take the Obama administration really seriously, right?
Click to expand...

I rest my case.
 
maxfrost said:
Sounds like the kind of story that Drudge Report regulars like to make a big deal out of.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the kind of story the Bush haters would have made a big deal of had it happened a year ago.
 
Compared to Hillary's claim she dodged sniper fire, this is slim pickings for Stewart.
 
BPSCG said:
Sounds like the kind of story the Bush haters would have made a big deal of had it happened a year ago.
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Are you going to make 'But they started it' a regular contribution to political discourse for the next four years? Is that all you have?

It also sets you up with your traditional hypocrisy on these matters:

Left Wing Loon: Bush acted like an idiot! Thus, what an incompetent President.
BPSCG: This is an unfair statement.

Right Wing Nut: Biden acted quite the fool! Thus, what an incompetent VP.
BPSCG: A fair statement.
 
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Undesired Walrus said:
Are you going to make 'But they started it' a regular contribution to political discourse for the next four years? Is that all you have?
Click to expand...
More "We can dish it out but we can't take it" noise from the left.

It also sets you up with your traditional hypocrisy on these matters:

Left Wing Loon: Bush acted like an idiot! Thus, what an incompetent President.
BPSCG: This is an unfair statement.

Right Wing Nut: Biden acted quite the fool! Thus, what an incompetent VP.
BPSCG: A fair statement.
Click to expand...
FYI, Beerina and I were personally responsible for the recent departure from these pages of a poster who started an "Obama = Hitler" thread elsewhere.

Can you take credit for having done anything similar?
 
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BPSCG said:
Sounds like the kind of story the Bush haters would have made a big deal of had it happened a year ago.
Click to expand...

The gaffes are piling up. [ETA: Or are they? Quite possibly she meant it, and for quite possibly a good reason]

That's exactly what I thought when I read this this morning.

Actor Richard Gere told Wolf Blitzer in an interview on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “misspoke in the moment” when she said that human rights “can’t interfere with the global economic crisis.”
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So Richard Gere can read Hillary's mind, because she couldn't possibly think what she said, when she said
...that the global economic crisis, climate change and security take precedent over human rights issues when dealing with China.
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Imagine Gere's reaction if "stupidfurryslobberface" (that's one of my favorites) said something similar.
 
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FWIW, I believe there are very few of us who could be followed around by TV crews every time we stepped outside and opened our mouths, who would not say something silly or embarrassing from time to time.
 
Vorticity said:
Yeah, I saw that.

I don't understand how they could possibly have gotten that wrong. Surely the U.S. government must have a thousand perfect Russian speakers working for them?
Click to expand...


Which of course doesn't mean that the Russian translator didn't have a sense for humor to tweak Hillary's nose. :p

Anyway, funny blooper.
 
Vorticity said:
Yeah, I saw that.

I don't understand how they could possibly have gotten that wrong. Surely the U.S. government must have a thousand perfect Russian speakers working for them?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean by "perfect." I doubt they have 1000 truly perfect English speakers, much less 1000 truly perfect Russian speakers. The fact that they misspelled the word on the button is funny, and embarrassing, and dumb. But it's rendered slightly less so by the fact that it turns out they just left out 2 letters of a twelve letter word...

So now we're in the endless loop where people who wouldn't have criticized the Bush administration say, hey look how dumb this is, and people who would have criticized the Bush administration say, no no, nothing to see here, and then the Bush people say, hey, you would have criticized Bush for this, and then the Obama people say, hey, you wouldn't have criticized Bush for this, and then the Bush people ... ?
 
Even if there had been no translation error, this would have been monstrously stupid and offensive.

If you're a diplomat, you don't make light of the difficulties between your country and the country you're supposed to build better relations with. ****! If school kids tried that, it'd still be stupid. "I'm sorry I stole your lunch money, Billy." "And I'm sorry I set fire to your cat." "Reset button!"
 
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