You don't want this woman to be your Secret Santa (UPDATED and UPDATED again)

The crack translation team at the State Department working in conjunction with the State Department gift squad outdid themselves Friday as Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a gift meant to symbolize the new administration’s desire for a fresh start.

It didn’t quite work out as she planned.

She handed him a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift—a red plastic button on a black base with a Russian word “peregruzka” printed on top.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton said as reporters, allowed in to observe the first few minutes of the meeting, watched.

“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said, to Clinton’s clear surprise. Instead of "reset," he said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”

Maybe were stuck in some sort of Dr. Strangelove time warp but how does giving the Russians a red button make it off the gift squad drawing board? Oh, that’s right… the gift squad was the same people that pulled off this overwhelmingly gracious act of friendship and loyalty.

And we suppose now that hopeandchangy is going international, it means taking indirect swipes at the previous administration.

Madam Secretary, may we be so bold as to suggest that before you go about trashing your predecessors, you drop the cheesy white elephant gifts and at the very least, figure out the host country’s language.

Yep, we're in good hands.

P.S. We truly do pity the staffer or whoever it was that screwed up that translation. In the annals of "career enhancing actions", this would not be one of them but please see instead, "cause for ass-chewing of a life-time."

UPDATE #1: Please stop by KT's place when you get a chance. In the spirit of unity and togetherness, he's soliciting ideas for diplomatic gifts to foreign countries since this administration seems to be getting off to a rough start in this particular area. We suggested that perhaps the First Lady could whip up some tasty Armenian treats like babakanoosh and eggplant dolma for the President's visit to Turkey.

UPDATE #2: On the President's first trip to the Czech Republic, we thought it would be good idea for the First Lady to pick up a couple of plastic replicas of Russian T-55 tanks for the hosts. And when the Dalai Lama comes to visit the White House everyone can call for Chinese take-out. We're really enjoying this call for unity.