So barry's push is to reconnect with Russia after their Olympics raid on Georgia...in digital terms "pressing the reset button". Evidently the idea was to present a gift to symbolize this. The idea was nice - but the translation was off.
According to CNN's JILL DOUGHERTY, Madame Secretary greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva Friday and gave him with a small green box with a ribbon.
MADAME SECRETARY: 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.'
He opened it and inside was a red button (without barry's face or logo) printed with the Russian word “peregruzka”.
CLINTON (laughing): We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?
LAVROV: You got it wrong.
CLINTON (laughing): I got it wrong?
LAVROV: It should be “perezagruzka” [reset]. This says ‘peregruzka,’ which means ‘overcharged.’
CLINTON: We won't let you do that to us, I promise. We mean it and we look forward to it.
Lavrov said he’d put the “reset” button on his desk.
How utterly embarrassing. Clinton senior adviser PHILLIPE REINES email message to the reporters covering Clinton shortly afterwards:
Since we're all learning a little Russian today, ‘opechatka’ is Russian for ‘typo'. So the *Opechatka* is being fixed, the gift will correctly read ‘Perezagruzka’ by the time of the joint press conference. If any of you travel with labelmaking devices equipped with Russian spell-check, please do let me know…
Don't they travel with a Russian speaking person? Don't they sign off with folks who read and write the language before they do anything? Her quick recovery was born out of a brilliant mind and decades of "tea sipping".
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov + Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
This picture says more about Madame Secretary's ability than anything that was said on paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment