A government official said the Xhosa-speaking Jantjie also did not speak English well enough to interpret effectively and that the firm that hired him had “vanished into thin air.”Thanks for the info, government official. Vanished into thin air. That's incisive. Personally, I choose thick air for my vanishing tricks.
December 13, 2013
The fake sign language interpreter from the Mandela memorial had faced charges of murder, rape, theft, breaking and entering, malicious damage to property, and kidnapping.
How was he hired? Was it sheer incompetence or something more sinister?
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33 comments:
Name one.
The first commentor under the linked WP article, 'Team America', lifted my comment from Althouse in its entirety and claimed it for his or her own.
Bob, I saw that. You're sort of famous, then, in an I've-been-plagiarized way!
Imitation is the second most sincere form of flattery.
Wow, say it isn't so, there's corruption in the UN / South Africa!?!
Wait. How do we know Bob Boyd didn't plagiarize TeamAmerica? Or - and now this gets really creepy - how do we know that Bob Boyd, TeamAmerica, Jesus, and Santa Claus aren't all one in the same? Answer: we don't.
Unless, of course, we get 4 specific buccal swabs.
Make that 6. I'd also like cheek-scrapings from Mr. Jantjie and POTUS. I have a theory.
Bob, I was planning to share that over at Hope & Change cartoons (I also cite the name & link when I do things like that). That comment is an internet classic. I can see someone putting it on a picture of him standing by Obama.
The other classic comment was the one that Chef Mojo made: Terrorists around the world are face-palming and saying, "why didn't I think of that?"
That's what makes Althouse so special - you just don't see those kinds of comments anywhere else.
I don't think it was any way an accident that it was a Xhosa nut-job interpreter that showed up the Zulu President, Jacob Zuma, as an incompetent on the world stage.
I also like the way that none of the newscasters even try to pronounce the clicks in the Xhosa language. The "X" in Xhosa and the "q" in the interpreter's name, Thamsanqa Jantjie, are not consonants, they're two different kinds of clicks. Bantu family languages not only have clicks, but they're tonally inflected, like Chinese, so they're a tough row to hoe for Indo-European language speakers.
I think I like all the confusion.
Maybe it'll cover my tracks and I won't get audited after all.
"New improved Althouse Comment Moderation is on today. Collecting swabs takes time so please be patient and don't submit twice....your comments, we mean.....well....don't submit your swabs twice either.
Thank you."
I guess Garrett Morris was unavailable.
This is the kind of thing that the current government in South Africa faces regularly.
There are official requiremente, and there is an official process.
But the actual decision-making is done more on the question of who is connected to whom, who has been paid off, and what various Important People have said about who should do what.
It's a an attempt to run a government that looks like a first-world government, but by a group of people whose culture is still tribal and is run on a follow-the-strong-leader dynamic.
What's the use of spying on the whole world if this guy's criminal record didn't come to the secret service's attention?
I'm just grateful that this rapist interpreter didn't grab Obama and start butt fucking him on the world stage. That would have been an irredeemable stain on South Africa's honor.
So were the Secret Service people too busy at South African brothels to check this guy's credentials out?
They should have a sign interpreter guy on staff to question -- in sign -- the person who will stand next to the President.
Faced charges does not mean guilty, by the way. No record of exists of any conviction (although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as I've said in the past).
We should hire him to explain Obamacare to the deaf.
Well, that inspires confidence.
So the cynics were right: the South Africans acted like a cargo cult and put a guy up front waving his hands. Because that is what Europeans do at their big speeches.
Perhaps they see it as a form of dance
"Vanished into thin air"
It's a phrase from Shake-speare, i.e. Edward de Vere.
"We should hire him to explain Obamacare to the deaf."
Hire me. You know, I'm a rather brilliant sign linguist. Perhaps I can explain Obamacare to the deaf.
☝ IF YOU
☺ LIKE YOUR DOCTOR,
♺ YOU CAN KEEP
☃☮♬✈ YOUR DOCTOR.
PERIOD.
Shocking...government screws up and nobody is responsible.
Progress!
What's the use of spying on the whole world if this guy's criminal record didn't come to the secret service's attention?
Another Althouse comment that will be swiped.
it's the not-so-family-friendly version of 'forrest gump'
Hell, there are no background checks for Obamacare navigators...
it'd be racist.
Background Checks as the New Racism
Leftists push to make it illegal for employers to ask, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”
The secret service does nothing to prevent this guy being within a few feet of Obama, yet when the president comes out to Los Angeles, they see the need to shut down half the city to protect him.
Maybe, just maybe, the S.S. is more about throwing their weight around than it is actually protecting the president. It must feel good to power-hungry maniacs to have all of Los Angeles having to respond to their over-reaching and ridiculous shut-downs.
If memory serves Althouse had to close her office blinds and not look out her window during Obama's campaign stop at the university.
That guy could have jumped Obama and broken his neck before anyone knew what was happening.
But close those blinds, Althouse, and do not gaze upon The One.
"If memory serves Althouse had to close her office blinds and not look out her window during Obama's campaign stop at the university."
Yes. I was warned that the Secret Service would descend upon me if I peeked through the slats.
p.s. I hope you find your pants.
p.p.s. Viva pantalones!
I'm sure the ANC knows who this guy is. He's one of their good ol' boys.
a classic cargo cult move by sub-human ferals.
I think the fake interpreter should take over Jay's job at the White House.
Clueless president, clueless spokesman. They fit together perfectly.
Chip has the best analysis, which ought to accompany every Obama speech, here.
How much grief would we have been spared if the networks had used it in 2008.
Who is in charge of the US Secret Service and how didn't they find out about this mentally ill person? It would be interesting to know (not to be told since we cannot trust anything the Obama administration says) if this fake sign language interpreter and all his possessions were thoroughly searched. Only by dumb luck did we dodge a potential disaster.
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