By Oleg Atbashian
First published in PJ Media
[PROG OFF]

A sphinxlike Russian newscaster Tatiana Limanova has flipped a "bird" while pronouncing Barack Obama's name on the Russian REN TV - the country's largest privately owned channel. The video of this exotic event is spreading like wildfire over the Internet as if it were a UFO sighting, causing Americans to question the algorithm of Hillary's "reset" button. As a Russian speaker I have received quite a few emails asking for the translation of the lovely anchorwoman's segment.

Responses to the Russian video in the American blogosphere range from marriage proposals and offers to get Tatiana on Fox News to reporting her to the White House website AttackWatch.com at the risk of being audited by the IRS. Not to discourage America's newly found respect for the Russians, it is my sad duty to inform them that the reality is less poetic, for the Russian anchor's middle finger is not what it's cranked up to be . In case you're wondering, this is not a parody or yet another progressive truth adjustment. Sometimes you win; not this time.

This is what Tatiana Limanova says in Russian: "Dmitriy Medvedev has become the Chairman of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) today." She stutters while pronouncing the name of the summit and continues: "Previously this position was held by Barack Obama." That's when she flips the bird and dispassionately goes on to describe the APEC press conference in Honolulu, with Medvedev talking about Russian-American missile treaty.Apparently Tatiana's gentle finger was directed not as much at Obama as at her filming crew, who probably had made comments about her stuttering in the first sentence. She heard it in her earpiece and flipped the bird in response, thinking she was speaking off camera over the footage of the conference. Reading Obama's name as she did that was a mere coincidence.

Tatiana Limanova has a reputation to uphold - after all, she is a winner of the prestigious TEFI Award presented to her by the Russian Academy of Television for being the best newscaster in 2010. Flipping the bird at another country's leader doesn't agree with that status, nor does it agree with the unwritten ethics of "edgy" journalism that require attacking one's own ruling elites first. Given that REN TV is considered the last bastion of free media in Russia, an "edgy" newscaster there would sooner flip a bird to her own president, Medvedev, than to the US president.

In addition, Russians typically don't make the same distinction between the president and the country as we do; Obama for them personifies America. So if the "bird" were intentional, it would be directed at the United States as a whole rather than to Obama personally. And that is unlikely since the rest of REN TV programming is mostly made of the following American shows in Russian translation:

• Formula-1 motor racing
  
• Family Guy (as Гриффины)
  
• The Simpsons (as Симпсоны)
  
• Friends (as Друзья)
  
• The X - Files ( as Секретные материалы)
  
• M*A*S*H (as МЭШ)
  
• My Name Is Earl (as Меня зовут Эрл)
  
• Top Gear Russia (Russian: Top Gear: Русская версия)
  
• Prison Break (as Побег)
  
• The 4400 (as 4400) - a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network
  
• Supernatural (as Сверхъестественное)
  
• Jetix, children's adventure programming from Disney

Furthermore, in Russia the middle finger itself is a very recent appropriation borrowed via Hollywood movies and other popular culture vehicles along with some American slang expressions, curse words, political correctness, and Che Guevara T-shirts.

The traditional Russian equivalent to the middle finger used to be "the fig" - a fist with a thumb placed between the index and the middle fingers. Since there is no significance to this gesture in the American culture, it's easy to imagine a US official, e.g., Hillary Clinton, accidentally placing her fingers in that manner over the table while dining with a Russian counterpart. That would be rather impolite because every Russian knows that polite people show "the fig" only with the hand hidden deep in the pocket. The act of supplanting it with the open display of the middle finger on Russian TV symbolizes the new spirit of Russian-American friendship, cultural exchange, and deepened mutual understanding.

A search of the Russian online media confirms my theory: Tatiana claims to not have any feelings towards Obama one way or another; the finger was aimed at the camera crew while didn't realize she was still on.

Initially REN TV declined comments on the blooper, while trying to pull the videos of it from popular websites. Only two days ago Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that her network wasn't going to punish Tatiana who had already been shaken enough. But that changed today with the announcement of Tatiana Limanova being fired. Apparently the world's desire to see Obama being flipped off by a Russian TV anchorwoman had made it too big an issue for the network to handle without attempting damage control -and so it overreacted.

Consistent with the Russians' lack of distinction between the government and the people, many headlines in today's Russian media covering this story contain words "insult to the West." Apparently the Russians are misreading America's reaction just as much as the Americans have misread the anchorwoman's gesture before that.

Herein lies an important lesson: a random silly gesture minus cultural and linguistic context, multiplied by wishful thinking on both sides, can result in a serious international "overcharge."

Fortunately, Americans aren't prone to taking into the streets rioting and breaking things due to a perceived insult. So let's be grateful that the newscaster's finger went up as she pronounced "Barack Obama" and not some other combination of words and sounds that might sound as, let's say, "Prophet Mohammed." That turn of events would have been much scarier, causing serious material damage and loss of lives - as it already has in many other cases.

Obama can go fig himself.

Nice insight. Thanks!

If her finger had gone up while saying George W. Bush, she would have gotten the fifth Nobel Peace Prize for Not Being George Bush.

Anyone have the video still? You Tube has taken it off completely.

[ off ]I have found it useful to capture a video from YouTube and repost it under an innocuous title lest the Google progs remove it. Such as "Democrats on an escalator." You can't find it by a keyword search, which is the problem and the point.

And today I hear Putin also said something.....!!!

In mother Russia the middle finger waving in the air is a sign of a half-victory. The famous "V" for victory sign has two fingers but the glorious past and future socialist state of mother Russia has a sign for being 'almost there'. It is the one finger wave. Russia would never send a bad finger to a brother socialist like the great leader obama. She was merely saying that obama was almost victorious in his quest to ruin the imperialist America and turn it into a peace loving NWO state like mother Russia. It is Russian way of saying...4 more years...(that should do it)...and Putin will be drinking champagne on the side of the Potomac.

KR2004 wrote:Anyone have the video still? You Tube has taken it off completely.

Sorry Comrade, still there.

It looks like Comrade Hillary's talents are not fully appreciated by the Russkies...

Smiley, how dare you post something which shows our Many Titted Empress with less than the total adoration that she deserves? Except of course for the hagiography owed Lord Obozo, PBUH, Ruler of the World, Berserker of Democracy (I love that) and in general despiser of America, because it's bigger than he is.

Boy does that resonate with me. Being a Made Prog, I take it personally when things think that they're "special" when as a Made Prog I know that I'm the only thing on earth that's special.

In fact I watch shows on television about the formation of the universe and shout, "I wouldn't have done that! How dare they do it! Why I don't care if it happened 10 billion years ago. I don't approve now.

"Fix it. Because I'm a Made Prog, and I care™. So you don't have to. And you better not."

By then I'll have taxed them into impecuniosity and whipsawed them with contradictory charges so that they'll think that they're the problem.

See? Win/win. The proles get in the neck. Pace Bill Ayers, "Guilty as sin, free as a bird, what a wonderful county."

Oh hell. I didn't paraphrase him. I just quoted him.

Such a model for a Made Prog. Even I am not as nasty as he is.