But imagine if one of Bush's Secretaries of State had presided over this embarrassment. It would be evidence of the anti-intellectual nature of George Bush, proof that everyone around him was a bunch of barely educated evangelical Christians, and all the rest. From March 6, 2009 Reuters:
Clinton told Lavrov she looked forward to better ties. "We mean it," she said before the two sat down to a working dinner.
"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 reset button.
Clinton and Lavrov had dinner on the 18th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva.
They joked about the Russian misspelling of "reset" on the button before sitting down at an oval table with aides. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton asked. "You got it wrong," said Lavrov, telling her "Peregruzka" meant "overcharge."
As one of the commenters over at Volokh Conspiracy with an appropriately Russian name explains:
«перезагрузкa» - reloadAnother commenter observes:
«перегрузка» - overcharge
So, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan all work hard to make sure the Russians never start a nuclear war and the first thing Obama and Clinton do is present them with a red button and encourage them to push it?Most important of all--there used to be a Secretary of State who might have caught this mistake early on. From February 6, 2005 BBC:
Nice.
A state department official said Ms Rice, who as an academic specialised in Soviet affairs, had a two-and-a-half hour working dinner with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at her hotel in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Although Ms Rice speaks fluent Russian, the two spoke only in English, the US official said.
It's amateur time at the State Department, I fear. It's certainly amateur time at Treasury.
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