Running for the president in his mid-forties, Barack Obama has a lot in common with the last Democrat to win the White House, Bill Clinton. Both are smart, charismatic men who graduated from top law schools and have wowed their party faithful with their eloquence and visions of hope. Both men assembled crack political teams for their campaigns and drew favorable coverage from the media. Heck, they even have the same star sign, Leo, both born in August (Obama on the 4th, Clinton the 19th).
And it seems these two men have something else in common, a quality they share with another recent Democratic nominee, Al Gore. They both love to invent stories about their past (or that of their family) to better able to appeal to the audience they are addressing. The likely Democratic nominee “told a Selma [Alabama] audience that the 1965 March on Selma resulted in his conception.” This guy really is amazing, being conceived three-and-one-half years after he was born.
Yesterday, he did it again:
I had an uncle who was one of the — who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. And the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months.
Problem is that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz. There’s more on the story here.
Guess with Hillary’s campaign fading, the Democrats still want a candidate with access to that old Clinton magic which includes an ability to rewrite one’s past to fit the current campaign narrative.
UPDATE: Roger Simon reports that the Obama campaign has backtracked to say that the candidate meant Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.
Kinda puts his platform in whole different perspective, no?
I’d like to hear Sen. Lieberman’s (and esp. Mrs. Hadassah Lieberman’s) reactions to this. Her parents survived the camps, after all, and she was born in post-war Europe before making it over to America.
Auchwitz… Ohrdruf, uncle….great uncle, tomato..tomahto…whats the big deal? It’s just a bunch of Jews.
So much for that shallow attempt to buy some “cred” with “the Jews”.
And while we’re on the subject of WWII Germany, did you see the story about Germany’s new monument memorializing nazi persecution of gays?
It’s half prison, half peep show. pretty effective i thought. But where is the monument for the gypsies? the disabled? the Christians? Must there really be separate monuments for all the victims?
#4, All monuments to the dead and persecuted are inadequate. As civilizations go, Europe has been beating a retreat for a century now. Its Wasteland became a Graveyard that became a Disneyland.
It depends, Chandie.
Consider this scenario. Candidate X is a blowhard, always puffing his stories. He tells the world, with an absolutely straight and sincere face, perfectly conscious of his words, “My uncle helped liberate Auschwitz”. He absolutely meant Auschwitz. Why? Because he is such a doofus, so utterly ignorant of worldly history (that he otherwise puffs himself up on allegedly knowing), that he truly *does not know* that Auschwitz is in Poland.
Then, later, his minions (that would be his campaign staff – and you) swoop in to say “Oh, he meant Buchenwald. He must have! Because He is Always Right. And Buchenwald is obviously the only thing that could possibly make sense; the one and only way we can salvage this story.”
Is that a correction? Or backtracking? Each person must use their rational judgment to decide.
AE at #3 – I think you meant “potato, potatoe…”
Well, at least it got corrected right away….Mr. McCain (and a lot of other Republicans) seem to constantly confuse Sunnis and Shiites and seems to do this over and over again, even with a handler on the scene to whisper the difference into his ear.
What’s the excuse for the senior member of the Armed Services, Select Intelligence Committee, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D,TX)?
Are we supposed to excuse liberals when they make gaffes? Or, since they’re your “trophy” minorities, do we just pat them on the head and say “you still get a gold star on your forehead for trying”?
And let us not forget that Sunnis and Shiites have historically collaborated together, many times, to further their political goals.
You, Kevin, get a shit brown star for your weak attempts. You may now go to the back of the class.
ILC is Dan Quayle!
kevin the pussy never replies to anyone when he’s asked a questioln… his whole MO is to swoop in, make some partisan nasty comment divorced from reality and then ignore anyone who asks him to defend what he said
thats how the left works.. they couldn’t lay out the reason for any of the shit they spew
Mr. McCain (and a lot of other Republicans) seem to constantly confuse Sunnis and Shiites
That’s a fair criticism, imho, and conservatives and the GOP ought to be precise in their comments + grasp of history, issues. But they should for reasons different than multicultural standards of “fairness” or “recognition.” They should out of unapologetic self- (and American-) interest — with which accurate remembrance of the Shoah, and the American role in ending it (tragically flawed too, btw) has much to do.
If the incident where McCain said Iran was supporting Sunnis in Iraq (or was it that they were supporting AQ, I dont remember the fine detail) is what was meant by McCain confusing Sunni and Shias .. the press and Obama got it all wrong.
McCain was right.. Iran was/is backing both the local Sunnis of Iraq , and AQ in Iraq and AQ Classic.
Why McCain didn’t defend that position, I’ll never know.. maybe there’s some politician rule that when speaking to idiot reporters who dont understand anything its easier to just go along with the point you were making rather than risk having the press sidetrack the larger point.
Please give one instance of it being a fair criticism.
I’m really curious, because in the instances I’ve seen, it was the *liberals* who were screwing things up. For example, a Republican candidate would say, “Iran and the Shia militias in Iraq have even been helping al Qaeda in Iraq.” 100% correct and accurate, based on latest military reports. But clueless liberals would then say, “Ha ha, Shia and Sunni can never work together…” having no idea how stupid / incorrect they are.
Yes, do not concede too easily the assertions of the Leftist, even if that assertion is merely one of good faith error. The idea that McC doesn’t know the diff between Sunni and Shiite is concocted from one misquotation wherein McCain is actually RIGHT about the affiliation of the group in question and it is the assumption of the reporter that was wrong. I like the notion of “repeatedly”. Let’s see one instance that isn’t fabricated and then we can be on the lookout for recidivism. Never assume what the Lefty says is true, friends, regardless of the faddish appeal. For one thing, the globe is not warming, it is cooling. How could that be gotten so wrong?
And for the record: the doctrinal difference between Sunni and Shia is the belief in a hereditary claim to authority by the decendents of Muhammed. Sunni are for it. Shia against. Another reason we may back Shia over Sunni, other things being equal.
He said Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz. The story is still true. (It was probably told to him wrong anyway.)
You’re really reaching now to come up with something. But please keep pouncing on Hillary. We all know she’s only still taken seriously as a candidate because of Republicans who voted in the Democratic primaries and the conservative pundits who egg her on.
Notice, Houndentenor, how Barack is never to blame; instead, you throw his uncle, who was probably white and therefore a racist like his grandmother, under the bus for not telling the story right.
As Dan noted by his reference to the “conception in Selma” story, this story wasn’t a gaffe but part of a pattern of embellishments. (Remember when he said his father came to the United States thanks to a program initiated by John Kennedy. But his father was already living here when the Kennedy program commenced.)
I can understand how Obama confused Auschwitz and Buchenwald but as he related the story he specifically said it was his uncle. There is a big difference between an uncle and a great uncle, especially when he doesn’t have an American uncle. He should have gotten that part of the story correct, except that a great uncle doesn’t tie Obama as close to the plight of the Jews as an uncle does. Obama apparently decided he needs to “feel their pain” if he is to win the support of Jewish voters jittery about his commitment to Israel’s security.
I’m not surprised that an increasingly pro-Obama media failed to catch the falsehoods in Obama’s story. I do wonder if the Obama campaign would have corrected the story had the Republican Party not pounced on its falsehoods.
#17 – “He said Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz. The story is still true. (It was probably told to him wrong anyway.)”
Look, Scooby-Doo: there is a BIG difference between Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Secondly, how can the story still be true? Are you still stuck on the “fake but accurate” screed of the 2004 election?
Also, you didn’t seem to mind when others wrongly attacked John McCain when it came to Shia vs Sunni. And I would bet a box of Scooby Snacks that you don’t have a clue either.
Regards,
Peter H.
Obama wants to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and he didn’t bother to check out his uncle’s story? All of these years?
How could this sloppy ignorant lazy fraud be President? Can you imagine if he told story in Germany, Poland or Israel?
I think he deliberately said: Auschwitz, simply because Americans identify Auschwitz with the Holocaust. Most people don’t have a clue what
Buchenwald is. So he’s lazy, and hopes to score some points with the Jews (he is losing more of their support everyday), by mentioning some obscure relative who helped the Jews 60 years ago.
Problem is, each day there are 2 or more gaffs coming out of this guy. And we’re left to wonder, what is wrong with this guy. Where are his handlers, his speech writers? How hard would it have been to say: my uncle was involved with the liberation of Buchenwald, a concentration camp where Germans murdered many Jews during WWII.
Maybe no such thing happened. The uncle served in WWII, had nothing to do with concentration camps, but Barry thought he could get Brownie points anyway.
That is pathetic shilling! OMG 🙂
Look – One time I was in a car crash outside New York City. Except I wasn’t in a car crash, I was only in a parking scrape. And it wasn’t me, it was my cousin. And it wasn’t in New York, it was in California. – The story is still true, right?
No it didn’t, Kevin sweetums. Obama has been telling the Auschwitz story since at least 2002. That’s a FIVE YEAR correction, by my count.
Emphasis added. Here’s why:
– In the 2002 telling, notice it’s his grandfather. Obama has now given us 3 different versions: his grandfather, his uncle, and his great-uncle. Which is it? Bloggers seem to agree he had one relative in WW2, a great-uncle. Why doesn’t the Obamessiah know his own family?
– In the 2002 telling, his “grandfather” signed up “the day after Pearl Harbor”. I’ve read other comments to the effect that the relative (great-uncle) signed up *six months* after Pearl Harbor. Again, we see Obama packing the truth like fudge.
– Finally, in the 2002 telling, it’s “Auschwitz and Treblinka”.
I honor Obama’s relative for his service – whoever he was, and wherever it was – but this MULTI-YEAR shifting tale of Obama’s is beginning to smell as bad as Tuzla, if not yet as bad as Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia” whopper.
Correction and apology – it’s 2008, so that makes it a SIX YEAR correction.
(and, Kevin, THAT is an example of a rapid correction for ya)
ILC, you got game! 😉
Regards,
Peter H.
They probably don’t know the difference either.
Oh, and I just have to point out, it happened again. For the second time I mention a news story here (the german monument) and Drudge posts it the next day.
Drudge, reveal thyself!