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March 6, 2005
"Is Putin that stupid?" Vy vs. ty
"In an odd exchange during the private meeting that preceded their joint news conference on Thursday, a defensive Putin reportedly expressed his belief that Bush fired CBS News anchor Dan Rather. 'Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather,' says a senior Administration official. 'It was like something out of 1984.'"
(From a Washington Post article by Dan Froomkin - requires registration.)
Konstantin of 'Russian Blog' responds:
"I'm absolutely sure that Putin could not be that stupid as to believe in Bush's ability to fire journalists. I'd sooner believe that Bush speaks perfect German ... So what could possibly happen there at the "private" meeting? Putin could say: "A vy uvolili Dena Ratera" In this context "vy" means "you, Americans" not "you, President Bush". There's a very old Soviet joke. An American is criticizing the Soviet Union and the Communist Party and a Russian at last adduces a counter-argument: "A vy negrov linchuyete!" (But you lynch black people!) Here the Russian didn't mean that his opponent personally lynched anyone. He meant that his opponent is a citizen of the country where black people are lynched."
Posted by michele at March 6, 2005 4:18 PM