In March 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Geneva with a ridiculous red button prop to officially “reset” U.S./Russian relations. Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with the button – which had the Russian word "peregruzka" printed on it – during a photo op. As it turns out, the State Department wasn’t even able to get the translation right.
"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,’” Clinton told Lavrov. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?"
"You got it wrong," Lavrov said. "It should be ‘perezagruzka’ [the Russian word for reset]. This says 'peregruzka,' which means 'overcharged.'"
Oops.
Five years later, Clinton is revving up her run for president, and she continues to tout that fateful “reset” as a success. During an interview on National Public Radio on Thursday, Clinton boldly declared “the reset worked.”
Listen to the audio courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon below:
“The reset worked,” Clinton said in part. “It was an effort to try to obtain Russian cooperation on key objectives while Medvedev was president, and of course Putin still pulled the strings but he gave Medvedev a certain amount of independence to negotiate, number one, a new arms control treaty which was absolutely necessary. We brought Russia around to understanding why we thought there needed to be international sanctions against Iran.”
“It's crazy how out of touch these people are,” Glenn said on radio this morning.
It appears as though the former Secretary of State forgot about the fact Russian backed separatists are on the march in the Ukraine after supporting the annexation of Crimea earlier this year. While the investigation is ongoing, it is believed Russia played a role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine. All the while, U.S. sanctions against the country and its leaders have done little to thwart the advances.
With all of that in mind, it is difficult to understand Clinton’s logic.
“What cooperation have we received from Russia really ever, but especially since that reset thing,” Pat asked.