Posted on 03/08/2009 6:22:48 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
On top of the major faux pas in gifting promulgated by the Obamas during the visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown comes the story of the ridiculous mistake that Secretary of State Hillary "the linguist" Clinton made with her gift to Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
The "gift" was supposed to be a funny one, but it was a misfire because it seems that Clinton couldn't find anyone in the employ of the State Department that had a grasp of the Russian language. The U.S. media has not made too big a deal about this one but the Russian and British media has been playing this one to the hilt. It's being called the "Button Gaffe" and it certainly is making our Sec. of State look stupid to the world.
At their meeting in Geneva last week, Clinton gave Lavrov what was supposed to be a "re-set button" telling the Russian people that we were "re-setting" our relationship. Unfortunately for our expert at foreign relations, the word on the button's casing did not say "re-set" in Russian. It said "overcharged" or "overload." So, if the Russian Minister were to push that button we'd be "overloading" our relations. NOT the message that we wanted to send, was it?
Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...
Were you worried that one “Gift Gaffs” posting wouldn’t sufficiently cover this critical story?
This is nothing compared to the time when Reagan gave Gorbachev a pair of Acme rocket roller skates.
Since they were looking for the word “reset”, why didn’t they just look at any Russian computer for the reset button and copy the word.
Since nobody in the BHO administration speaks Russian, I am glad the cold war is over. I guess the warriors are dead by now any way.
If our gal Sarah can see Russia from her house, maybe she has a Russian translation disk on her computer. I have one on mine, not something I use every day. Or she thinks of the Russians as WEALTHY!
barbra ann
In both of those articles (about the British gift and the Russian gift), they make note that the US media is ignoring it while the rest of the world is taking note.
Even my friends and relatives are confused as to why it’s such a big deal to me because “It must not be too big a deal, they haven’t talked about it on the news”.
At some point the US media is going to be recognized as being more interested in perpetuating propoganda for Obama than actually being journalists and have no credibility whatsoever by the rest of the world.
We already know it in the right in America, but now the rest of the world can get in on the dirty secret we have all known.
The answer here....is a Czar of Gifts, who would be based out of New York City...of course. This individual would report to the president, and have a budget of $44 million a year....to buy gifts for the big-wigs of the government to give to other big-wigs. We would help the gift industry and help prevent future problems.
Of course, knowing our luck...we’d hire a really cheap guy for the job, who’d be buying Timex watches for everyone as gifts.
Between Canckles and Plugs, it’s a toss-up who’s smarter, but I still think they are both smarter than The Zero.
Those websites were dead, 10am EST 8thMarch. Anybody know why?
When I first heard about this story, I thought it was satire. Can you imagine the howling from the MSM if the Bush administration had pulled a diplomatic disaster like this.
I can see why the press wants to avoid this one. Clearly the gift was a jab at President Bush, who made it necessary for us to “restart” our relationship with Russia. Didn’t turn out so well, did it? The press will hide this as long as they can.
These are gaffes that CHILDREN do......a DVD SET??? It won’t work in the UK and it’s TACKY anyway. A RESET button??? I guess Obama want the EASY button!
Too bad nobody thought to ask Condi.
I guess Obama want the EASY button!
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LOL! That’s exactly what that thing looks like!
I agree, it was really odd to see that incident with Clinton - seemed very inappropriate. What must the Russians be thinking? I’m not a fan of Clinton, but at least she’s an experienced dignitary - how could she think this was all OK?
And the press is sweeping it all under the rug.
Don’t fool yourself, Hillary is NOT above childish things like this crap....she’s a DEMOCRAT, they are all children.
Have they discussed yet Obama bringing the Queen a Snuggie?
They need to hire a woman for that job.
I’ll be happy to volunteer.
No one in the State department who knows Russian?
I call the *bulls^$t* flag on this.
Isn't that what this lady - Acting Chief of Protocol Gladys Boluda - is meant to do?
It seems that Bush's lady resigned Jan 20th, and her assistant took over.
Either they are completely incompetent, or the Great O's staff won't listen to them...
Now I could be wrong - I’ve only been an engineer for like 35 years - but the button is actually what we would call an “E-Stop”... meaning Emergency Stop switch. Granted it’s a resetable E-Stop (see rotational arrow on button) but nonetheless a switch used when you absolutely must SHUT DOWN whatever is going on.
Exactly the type of switch I’d like to see wired into Obamo’s plans for this country.
And I’d be the first to hit that sucker.
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