Mar 06 2009
Clinton Embarassing Us With the Russians
There’s a report on the Reuters wire that Secretary of State Clinton and the State Department have rather embarassed themselves.
   GENEVA, March 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red “reset button” to symbolise improved ties, but the gift drew smiles as the word “reset” was mistranslated into the Russian for “overcharge”.
  “I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together,” said Clinton, presenting Lavrov with a palm-sized yellow box with a red button.
  Clinton joked to Lavrov: “We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?”
  “You got it wrong,” said Lavrov, smiling as the two pushed the reset button together before dinner at a Geneva hotel.
  He told Clinton the word “Peregruzka” meant “overcharge”, to which Clinton replied: “We won’t let you do that to us.”
Do we really not have the language skills at State to get one little word right? And people wonder why stocks keep going down when the Obama administration keeps having all these little incidents. It doesn’t exactly help breed confidence.
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