Online footage of the incident, which occurred earlier this month during an afternoon news bulletin on the privately held REN TV channel, is being avidly viewed in both Russia and the United States.
In the footage, Tatyana Limanova, an award-winning senior newsreader at the channel, can be seen briskly reading out an item about how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has just assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Asia Pacific Cooperation organisation.
She is then heard to say that the post “has (previously) been held by Barack Obama” before mechanically and unambiguously raising her left arm and showing the camera her raised middle finger in an offensive gesture that is sometimes known as “flipping the bird.” The scandal comes at a time when US-Russia relations appear to be getting worse after President Obama’s much-heralded attempt to “reset” them. Sources at REN TV said Ms Limanova would not be punished for her slip-up despite the embarrassment it has caused the channel.
Follow the link, read some of the comments.
Update: Tatyana Limanova joins the ranks of the unemployed.
Our lack of global popularity continues.
This could start a well deserved trend.
She’s fortunate to live in a country that allows free speech and expression of opinion…
Unless it was Putin she flipped off, then she would have a tragic accident like walking in front of a cement truck.
I guess HuffPo scooped us, and The Telegraph, and Drudge.
It’s what happens when you get old.
Hmm…made a donation lately?
She just needs to be porked hard..From Russia with Love..
Silly.
Things like this make me really embarrassed for my Motherland.
Hey, that hand gesture didn’t hurt me a bit. “She’s entitled to her own opinion.”
Now the Tea Baggers and the Repubes are on the same side as Russia. 🙂
I always knew it.
I think a lot of Americans who voted for Obama would like to give him the bird in person. He won’t end the wars or make the banksters behave or make anything one damn bit better for the 99%.
Maybe a simple piss off would be more gentle but being polite won’t make things better.
Well said and I leave it at that.
That bird was so mechanical and without emotion that it was almost certainly in the script she was given to read. Folks this did not come from the parrot. The parrot was told what to say.
Russian TV news is unabashedly government-provided material. (USA TV news is *abashedly* government-provided material.)
That she kept her job was……… OF COURSE…
Like I said, the finger was IN THE MEMO which this talking-head was given her by the government of Russia.
This woman’s behavior is not unlike Fox News.
One more thing
Are all Russian chicks hot?
scandal?? punished?
-for flipping off the camera?
anyone in power who suggests such things should be removed from office immediately for being a spineless reptile.
-s
That was thoroughly unprofessional. Now if she’d done a personnel commentary about Obama and flipped the bird after THAT – it would at least be unambiguous.
I can see that catching on. It seems most natural.
The link says she thought she was “off camera” just providing voice over and the crew were giving her guff and she was flipping THEM off. That Credible.
But what is the issue here? I don’t get it. That foreign countries are supposed to respect our President?===I don’t think so. That government controlled media outlets are supposed to respect our President?==I don’t think so.
But I post to question why we, the good readership of DU, is supposed to read the comments following the link. What is the issue there?===I’ll have to think on that.
There is hope in the world when both east and west recognize the same rude gesture. It gives a good opening for understanding.
“..an award-winning senior newsreader ..”
Wonder what she won the award for? Trilling her rrr’s or reading Mexican names with a latino accent?
Is the middle finger understood the same way as Americans do?
Some coutries give things a different meaning.
You know, like the pinky and middle finger raised together will be offensive to a married Italian male, but in US it will be meaningless.
It’s obvious she is a Republican practicing to be President.
any newer links to the pulled vid?
You know I just read another piece about how Obama’s biggest fault is he thinks he is always right. He is never able to see someone else’s point of view. I think this hope and change he talked about was replaced by its me or the highway attitude.
I think Clinton has done nothing for Foreign policy and that’s simply because she is a Woman and especially in the Middle East those leaders think of Woman as second class citizens. You would think Obama with some Muslim blood would at least be thought of different. But I think they just view him as a traitor to the Muslim culture. Russia on the other hand is simply looking to take advantage of the US and it viewed weakness with the World. To be all honest who can blame them? The US is not in a good position to tell anyone what to do.
She was fired.
http://tinyurl.com/d93dmzz