Obamateurism of the Day

Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton offered an amateurish moment of her own when she gave Sergei Lavrov a “reset” button. The idea itself was a cheap shot at the Bush administration, which had annoyed the Russians by pursuing a missile defense system in eastern Europe to counter the Iranian threat that the Russians had either ignored or actively fed. But the State Department fouled up by mistranslating the label, using the Russian word for “overcharge” rather than “reset,” and using Latin alphabet characters instead of Cyrillic, the norm for Russian.

Normally we wouldn’t apply that to Obama for this feature, but Obama himself declared that this diplomatic embarrassment actually worked as intended … despite any evidence to the contrary:

While White House officials acknowledged on Sunday that there was no way a new agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, would be ratified by the legislatures of either country even if it was completed by the end of the year, they said that they expected to at least reach an interim “bridge” agreement that would preserve the status quo until a new agreement was reached.

Sunday afternoon’s session was the fifth bilateral meeting with Mr. Medvedev since Mr. Obama took office vowing to repair America’s relationship with Russia, and administration officials expressed satisfaction with their progress so far.

“The reset button has worked,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting, alluding to the administration’s early promise to press a “reset” button in America’s relationship with Russia after several years of bickering over a host of issues like missile defense and the status of Kosovo.

So how exactly has this reset button worked? The Obama administration flip-flopped on missile defense despite assuring the Poles and Czechs in the spring of his intention to follow through on the Bush plan. In response, the Russians refused to extend sanctions on Iran. The status of Kosovo has still not been resolved. And Obama hasn’t even gotten his START agreement yet, even though the Russians need nuclear arms limitations much more than we do, as they can hardly afford another nuclear arms race.

The “reset” button worked … for Russia. They got us to back off of missile defense and alienate our allies in eastern Europe, in exchange for exactly nothing. We’re the ones that got overcharged, thanks to the amateurish diplomacy of both Hillary and Obama.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

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