Amateur Hour
Is up to what, amateur six weeks now? I thought Hillary was supposed to be the one with the 3 0′clock in the morning wake-up call experience. NYT: Gag gift to Russkies goes awry.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in greeting Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, presented him with a red plastic button emblazoned with the English word “reset” and the Russian word “peregruzka.”
The gift was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to “press the reset button” on their relationship.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”
“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.
“We won’t let you do that to us,” she said quickly, with a full-throated laugh.
Hard to know where to start with everything that’s wrong with this. Forget about the tin-ear humor of riffing off anything Biden says. Cheap plastic gags for troublesome ex-superpower adversaries? Winston gets the bum’s rush and DVDs for the Brits. And that’s before we get to the dangerously inept moves with Iraq and Iran … keeping track of the foreign policy gaffes alone and understanding their wide-ranging ramifications just one month in is clearly worthy of an endowed chair at SAIS or Fletcher. Maybe a center at the JFK School. Maybe a few of them. The Navin Johnson Center for the Comprehension of How Foreign Stuff Works. The Barney Fife Center for Defense Posturing. IR careers will be made on this.
Later, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Lavrov reported that they had a wide-ranging and positive exchange, laying the groundwork to renegotiate a strategic arms reduction treaty and discussing ways of cooperating on missile defense, a major bone of contention between the countries.
I have no doubt the Russians are looking forward to working with the Obama administration on a number of isses. These people look like easy marks.
But that hapless red button kept getting in the way. Mr. Lavrov said he hoped the linguistic miscue would “contribute to the advancement of Russian in the United States and English in Russia.”
Lavrov likes the idea of Russian advancement in the United States. English will come in handy for Russkies.
Hinderaker with a serious review of “Clinton’s Apology Tour,” plus Steyn’s Defense of Hillary, prior to the gag gift to the Ivans. I’m not sure serious reviews are possible anymore, or even adviseable. The consequences of all this are too dire to contemplate.
Hot Air: Two-gift-gaffe daysin a row, and cruelly, Hillary competes with Geithner for Competence Nadir … I dunno, maybe they’re operating at a level beyond lumpenblog comprehension.
Gateway: F-bombs fly once Hillary’s offstage.
JustOneMinute: Great idea, give Ivan button-pushing ideas.
Tigerhawk, with unspeakable cruelty, on Joe Biden’s “gaffitational pull.”
Blair marvels at what is possible when Clinton and Biden put their heads together.
Iain Martin at UK Telegraph on Obama’s enthusiasm for some things British. Tea with the queen.
It’s not all a loss. Here’s a chance to impress someone on the foreign policy front. Hugo Chavez: Keep moving on the path to socialism.
Topics: Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:41 am on Saturday, March 7, 2009
2 Responses to “Amateur Hour”
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March 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
You might want to keep a bunch of those “reset” buttons handy, Mrs. Clinton. I have a feeling you’re going to be needing them often over the next 4 years.
March 7th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Atlantic America would have been believable as an EU wannabe if Panarin had limited it to New England and states in the Bos-Wash.