Hillary Clinton calls Russian president-elect ‘Whatever’
Sen. Hillary Clinton frequently stresses her foreign policy credentials over Sen. Obama. Today on al-Jazeera, which covered the Russian presidential election, Sen. Clinton was shown fumbling the pronunciation of Dmitri Medvedev—badly. And added a ‘or whatever’ to the end of that. This is hypocritical of Sen. Clinton and disrespectful to President-elect Medvedev (which is not a very hard word to pronounce for anyone who has had contact with Russians).
If President George W. Bush did this, it would be all over the news, David Letterman would have it on ‘Great Moments in Presidential Speeches’, and the Democrats would be going on and on about what a dumbass Dubya is.
I have not seen the American media showing Sen. Clinton’s gaffe, at least not as part of a news bulletin, but a quick Google search did show that it aired there in the US as part of a presidential nominee hopefuls’ debate. One blog commenter, Redmanrt, at Slate wrote this sentiment and I have to agree:
If George W. Bush did it, it would have made countless news broadcasts as well as during the original debate.
Now, I can understand Sen. Clinton being tired on the campaign trail and a mispronunciation might be forgiveable, but adding a ‘Whatever’? And if she is tired now and makes these mistakes, what can we expect if she becomes the 44th president of the US? If you see how Dubya has greyed—not all of it is due to age, I bet—being in the White House is no easier than campaigning to get in.
Yes, I mess up pronunciations, too, but I try to get presidents’ and prime ministers’ names right. Today I found myself practising ‘Medvedev’ during a Russia Today broadcast, since that is probably more definitive than other networks’ that I can access—and that was before I saw the al-Jazeera broadcast and learned of Sen. Clinton’s error.
And I am just an average Joe who casually talks about politics sometimes.
My Groups
-
News of the World Updated: 6 minutes ago
-
Media and Culture Updated: 9 minutes ago
-
Social Justice Updated: 9 minutes ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Comments
I notice the west condemned the elections, which were admittedly far from ideal, but in writing off what was at the end of the day a democratic vote (no matter how skewed the media was to help Medvedev) they reinforce all of the negative opinions and the people who think nothing has changed in Russia. At least when they replaced the President they got a chance to vote, more than we did when Gordon Brown took office. Plus, if we look at the figures turnout was higher than we get here in the UK, and while people say it was fixed it wasn't fixed in the sense of fraud - essentially people could go to the polls and vote for whoever they want. The thing is, even without the media bias and the suppression of some opposition figures, Medvedev would have probably won anyway, the west can't seem to accept that Putin and his party have the support of the masses, yet all the polls show his approval rating as very high. It was by no means ideal, but I do think we should view it as what it was, a democratic election for arguably the second most powerful job in the world.
None of our democracies are truly democratic anyway - see Gore winning the popular vote, The Tories winning more English votes but less English seats, etc. I'm not surprised the Russians think the USA and UK hates them - by and large they seem to be correct.
(Sorry for the rant. I like Russia, and think she's constantly the victim of propoganda - the cold war's meant to be over, but it's still open season on Russia.)
About the only American politician who seems to get the Russians is Condi Rice—mostly because the woman has been able to converse with President Putin in his own language.
Who is more corrupt? Clinton or Medvedev?