What’s all the flap over? Victoria Nuland tells it like it is. Here is the commentary:
The actual conversation is under the fold. The Russians are sneaks, the Germans are pissed. The Germans seem to stay that way at us there days. I sort of like Victoria Nuland. She is growing on me.
Now for the real conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt. (The uncensored version)
The President should have told Kerry to sack her immediately. Obviously the Russians were listening and recording, but one has to assume that that sort of thing goes on. Her intemperate speech causes great harm to important US interests.
Do you feel this way because she dropped the f-bomb?
The f-bomb doesn’t belong in the vocabulary of anyone who’s
involved in diplomacy. And, she should have known that the mike
is almost always open. Open mikes have done a lot of damage.
BTW, I’ve never thought she was a good spokesperson for the
State department. Don’t ask my why!
I thought she was on the phone but I could be wrong.
I think that when I am on the phone I can assume I am having a private conversation. I don’t care how people talk in private.
Maybe it was private, but it isn’t any more.
And I do care about how people talk in private< if they are talking to me anyway.
OK – so I'm sorta old, and I can't imagine any of my friends every using the f-word.
This is a case in point, where a word loses it's impact due to overuse.
I care how people talk to me in private also. The f-word just isn’t one of my trigger words, having dropped a few bombs myself. Vintage woman habit, in my case.
My sainted (only since she is deceased) mother had a different take. She said I had spent my entire life trying to become poor white trash. Sigh…..I never used that word in front of my mother.
It’s not private if foreign intelligence services are monitoring and recording. The entire conversation about the Ukraine opposition and the profanity were inappropriate. Her attitude did great harm. The Russians probably could not believe their good fortune. Our diplomats shouldn’t give them great days like that.
Scout is spot on. Very much a security error on the part of anyone. Even more so for a senior Foreign Service Officer with her experience, including a tour in Moscow.
“I think that when I am on the phone I can assume I am having a private conversation.” Big mistake, big, huge (From Pretty Woman) particularly for a senior diplomat and in the light of the fact that i is generally accepted now that people are spying on other people.
You are probably right. However, I am not a diplomat. You know I sided with Dawg the Bounty Hunter because of that assumption of privacy.
much ado about nothing.
The F-Bomb – dropped on the Senate floor by a sitting VP. Said by the Speaker of the House towards a Senate Majority Leader. BFD.
By a diplomat on a call with another individual. A little embarrassment and nothing more. She may have to be reassigned. She should know better than to be talking on the phone in the Ukraine.
Absolutely an inexplicable error. You gotta wonder what these folks are thinking when they say things like this. It’s even worse when they send questionable e-mails, thinking no one will know. Amazing.
“I think that when I am on the phone I can assume I am having a private conversation.”
ANY gov’t agent that believes that should be fired for incompetence. You NEVER assume that a line is secure unless you have purposely used whatever technology said agency uses to make it so. And even then….you must be careful.
Anyone who listens to Elena and me on the phone really is one sick mofo. (bored and desperate)
Maybe Victoria wanted everyone to know how she felt about the E.U. and thought this was the secret way to let it be known…then she could say ooops and act all apologetic. My grandmother and mother both used to do something similar.