As Mike reported in his post, Obama has stepped into another gaffe. This time about his uncle helping to liberate Auschwitz:
Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz. He said the family legend is that, upon returning from war, his uncle spent six months in an attic. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important
Video:
Baldilocks in the Hot Air comments found that his great uncle and grandfather were in the service around that time so maybe he meant his great uncle PLUS a different camp since Auschwitz was not liberated by the US. But either way, its another gaffe to go along with whole smorgasbord of gaffes:
- Claimed Selma was what moved his parents to fall in love and have a child named Barack Obama. Problem is he was born four years prior to the Selma movement.
- Claimed translators were missing in Afghanistan because of the Iraq war. Problem is they speak two different languages.
- Claimed 10,000 people died during a tornado when the real number was….12
- Claimed he sees dead people
- Claimed to have visited 57 states during this election campaign. Problem is we don’t have 57 states.
Lots of gaffes with little front page news on them. Hillary’s sniper story gets splashed everywhere. But not Obama’s gaffes. No way can the messiah be blasphemed in such a way. Jim Geraghty:
Dan Quayle gets defined by one foolish moment where his misspells “potato,” and George W. Bush is forever mocked as a dunce for his (admittedly classic) “Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”
If the MSM would either A) be more forgiving of Republican officials who they don’t like or B) be a little tougher on Democratic officials they do like, the world would be a better place. In this case, I don’t think Barack Obama is deliberately lying, or trying to pull a fast one. It sounds like a family “legend” in which the specific horrors of war witnessed by his uncle are mistaken as the years go by. It happens, and Obama only deserves the lightest of metaphorical slaps on the wrist for it. But it would help if his fans in the press actually paid attention to what he says.
Pay attention? Come on…they are too busy fawning over his every “charisma” to actual care what he says.
It was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.
And the WaPo takes him to task…..about freakin time:
Granted, it is getting late in the campaign. The candidates are tired, and prone to making silly mistakes. Many Americans might have problems distinguishing Buchenwald and Ohrdruf from Auschwitz. But should we not expect more from a Harvard-educated presidential candidate? Is it too much to ask that an aspiring commander-in-chief knows (1) that Auschwitz (like many of the other Nazi death camps) is in Poland, and (2) that the eastern advance of the U.S. Army in World War II stopped on the river Elbe? Let me know what you think.
See author page
Barry, the voices in your head are leaking!
Dan Quayle gets defined by one foolish moment where his misspells “potato,”
Actually, the thing that made Quayle’s ‘potatoe’ goof so obnoxious was that he was trying to correct some kid who had actually spelled it correctly. It’s one thing to not know, it’s another to be wrong and still think you know better than someone else. Anyway Quayle had some other classics that helped make his image what it was.
McCain has a golden opportunity against this empty-suit dunce. But will he take advantage of it, or fall victim to the intimidation of the Barry Hussein supporting media? Given the highly questionable smarts and political sense of Juan “this isn’t amnesty”, only time will tell.
If you do a technorati seach on Obama and McCain you find that Obama has twice the number of ‘hits’ than McCain, so I seriously doubt he’s being ignored.
And speaking of being ignored, McCain has been ignoring Bush’s personal presence for over 3 months, until today. He’s having a fund-raiser and Bush is the main ticket draw. McCain’s campaign sent emails to various reporters, informing the journalists of the senator’s schedule, and the big event (which was relocated at the last minute due to an inability to sell tickets), but the email , “…made no mention that the leader of the free world would be appearing with the candidate tonight.”
Obama, of course, saw this as low hanging fruit:
I suppose the McCain campaign will be tempted to respond — but that might involve acknowledging the reality of the McBush event; a classic catch-22 senario.
I’ve added your post to At The Water Cooler’s Factcheck to be voted on by visitors
the thing that made Quayle’s ‘potatoe’ goof so obnoxious was that he was trying to correct some kid who had actually spelled it correctly.
Which would make a great story except potatoe, with an e, is an acceptable spelling and had the extra benefit of being what was written on the answer sheet that the teacher gave Quayle to test the class with.
There is a pattern of being loose with words and the facts here that is especially troubling when you take into account the story of his “uncle.” You would have thought that if this personal account were true, he would have had years to ascertain the facts and once having done so, wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake. It raises a question as to whether Obama simply pulled a fractured and incomplete story out of his memory as a political ploy rather than some heartfelt recollection of his uncle’s war record.
What all these examples add up to is a man who will redefine reality to suit himself and we’ve all seen how dangerous that can be in the White House after eight years of Bill Clinton who famously questioned the meaning of the word “is.”
Like Bill Clinton, it appears that Obama finds the truth to be relative to his own needs which is not a very healthy attribute to have in a President let alone a human being.
But, according to remarks (pdf file) he made in 2002,
It was friends of his grandfather that were in the red army? Where was his uncle/great uncle then?
Check out Sweetness and Light, the poster “greybeard” did a bit of research, it appears that the great-uncle was in the Navy.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-claims-his-uncle-liberated-auschwitz
Thanks Missy. Maybe he was on a Christmas swift boat incursion… oops.. wrong lying liberal.
So, I suppose the number of hits on a technorati search says it okay to fabricate or exaggerate familial events.