Putin rape joke was lost in translation
Russian President Vladimir Putin said to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:
"Say hello to your president. He really surprised us...," Putin said to Olmert as reporters were being ushered out just after the two men got down to talks in the Kremlin. An Israeli official said Putin continued about President Moshe Katsav: "I met him. He didn't look like a guy who could be with 10 women."
...referring of course, to news this week that Katsav may be charged with rape. Hilarious.
[An] Israeli official ... said that after microphones were switched off, Israel's ambassador to Russia joked that Putin appeared envious of the Israeli president. Olmert told his host: "I wouldn't envy him," said the official.
The Kremlin said it was a translation error. (Putin speaks "passable" English.) But I'm sure his joke wasn't funny in Russian, either.
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Putin's comments are crude, yes, but hardly unique. He just had the misfortune of being caught doing it.
It's just another example of some stupid and entirely unambiguous comment being sold as a "mistranslation" or "taken out of context," and as such it's another piece of evidence that politicians and their handlers do, in fact, think that we're all stupid.