THE UR WAS SUCH A NEOPHYTE...:

America Hears a Gaffe, Russia Sees a Plot (ELLEN BARRY, 8/02/09, NY Times)

AFTER Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal portraying Russia as a limping and humbled nation, many in Washington responded last week with a helpless shrug: There’s crazy Joe, they said, the guy who once told a wheelchair-bound state senator to stand up for a round of applause.

But in Russia, they weren’t shrugging. Within hours, a top Kremlin aide had released a barbed statement comparing Mr. Biden to Dick Cheney. Commentators announced Mr. Biden’s emergence as Washington’s new “gray cardinal” — the figure who, from the shadows, makes all the decisions that matter. Others said Washington’s mask had been torn off, revealing Mr. Obama’s “reset” as at best insubstantial and at worst duplicitous.

American officials spent several days trying to convince their Russian counterparts that Mr. Biden’s words were, for lack of a better label, a gaffe.

...he could perhaps be excused for not realizing his vp pick is an imbecile, but the Russians have to have a complete enough dossier on him to recognize it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 2, 2009 8:33 AM