The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Politics => Topic started by: Dixie*Darling on May 27, 2008, 08:35:30 PM
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http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/27/recollection-of-obama-familys-service-missing-key-details/
Barack Obama’s campaign scrambled Tuesday to set the record straight after the Democratic presidential candidate said on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
There were two obvious problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
As the Republican National Committee seized on the discrepancies, Obama’s campaign clarified that the Illinois senator was actually referring to his “great uncle,†and that he had confused Auschwitz with another concentration camp. The campaign said he meant to refer to Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
“Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II — especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald,†Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically.â€
The campaign said his great uncle, Charlie Payne, served in the 89th Infantry Division, and that the unit was among those to liberate Ohrdruf on April 4, 1945.
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Web site, Ohrdruf was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops in Germany. The site said the 89th Infantry Division was later recognized as a “liberating unit†by the museum and the Army’s Center of Military History.
The explanation from the Obama camp came after his remarks were put under the microscope by the RNC.
“Barack Obama’s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief,†said RNC Press Secretary Alex Conant.
The trouble started when Obama was speaking in Las Cruces, N.M., on Monday. He said he did not serve, but comes from a family that did sacrifice for the nation. He was speaking about the many members of the military who suffer post traumatic stress disorder and should be given better care.
“I had a 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 is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months, right. 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,†he said.
A quick check on the Holocaust museum Web site showed that Soviet forces were the first to approach Auschwitz, which was in Poland.
“On Jan. 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners,†the site reads.
U.S. forces did liberate several camps, including Ohrdruf Concentration Camp on April 4, 1945; Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp on April 11, 1945; Buchenwald on April 12, 1945; Dachau on April 29, 1945; and Mauthausen on May 5, 1945.
Ohrdruf was, according to the Holocaust Museum, not an extermination camp but a work camp where prisoners were worked to death.
Obama was raised in part by his grandparents, and his father served in the second World War.
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And if his grandfather were still alive, he'd probably be knocking the crap out of the Barackstar! right now.
Then we could bury him in a matchbox.
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Well, now, he's saying it was another camp:
The campaign said Tuesday that he named the wrong camp. They said it was actually Buchenwald.
Aides said his grandmother's brother, Charlie Payne, helped liberate a Buchenwald sub-camp in April 1945 as part of the 89th Infantry Division.
http://www.kait8.com/global/story.asp?s=8385739
That man really needs to be nominated.
He also said it was his uncle ... until it was pointed out his mother didn't have a brother. Then it became his "great uncle".
http://michellemalkin.com/
::)
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Folks, we once again need to show intellectual honesty.
Whether his family puffed up and changed the name of the camp where his ancestor liberated is totally irrelevant to anything. Many families have lore that may be a bead or two off what really happened. To touch someone or something that touched something of significance is important to many people. It is NOT the same as inventing, from whole cloth, eing under sniper fire. Nor is it pretending that for 20 years you never heard the racist words of your racist pastor.
Just as I defended mrs. clinton for her clumsy mis-statement of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy (she merely meant he was still campaigning in June), I must now defend hussein for a pretty small puffing of his ancestor's role in WWII -- and if he (the ancestor) even cleaned up after the crap that happened in any compound, his service should be respected.
I mean, folks, come ON!
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Yeah, this is nit-picking, but I still can't see how he got the name that confused - one is far better known than the other.
It more offensive for me to hear him push his socialistic "public service" agenda on Memorial day:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/25/AR2008052502717.html
as if dying for your country is the equvalent of serving in a soup kitchen for the homeless. His press has been not critical enough of him. He can do no right to me.
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Vonne, they should all be more careful about what they say and do is this age of instant media - Hillary has been telling these same stories for years, she's just now getting the negative Republican-like treatment by the MSM because there's a new kid in town they like more.
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... they should all be more careful about what they say and do is this age of instant media ...
True.
He knew that he would be making a speech on Memorial Day and once again his non-scripted words get him in trouble. Were his speech writers on vacation? Who is in charge of doing the research for his speeches? I guess it might have been too hard for him to call his Grandmother (she's under the bus after all) and verify the information. Anyone can look up an ancestor's military history.
He, as well as other's in politics, are held to a higher accountability. Remember John F'ing Kerry's integrity? Remember the Commander of Finger Wagging's definition of "is"? Hillary's "mis-spoken" words?
Petty? Not in my book. Politician's pander to all kinds of different groups of people. When doing that, have your facts straight. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Any thing less is revisionist history at best (?) or a bold face lie at worst.
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But... while he did make a mistake, the subject matter wasn't changed. I can imagine how it'd be easy to slip up which camp it was his great uncle helped liberate. It's a pretty far cry, from the complete fabrication of stories that Clinton has done.
He is the presumptive nominee
Yet he made three colossal blunders
1. Auschwitz is not in Germany, it is in Poland. Buchenwald is in Thuringia, near Weimar.
2. The camp in question was liberated by Russia, not by any American troops
3. Buchenwald was liberated on 11 April 1945 by elements of the 83rd AND the 89th Division.The 89th liberated Ohrdruf (a Buchenwald subcamp)
He also left out the 4th and 6th Armoured Divisions..the 89th was one of several units and was NOT the only one there as he implies
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=
Regardless of where it was, the fact remains that he failed to fact check his own speech.
Idiot.
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Hm. When they mentioned Patton's III Army I figured Dachau. BUT- who really knows. The guy could have been assigned to the division and never set foot in any concentration camp.
Not to take away anything from a Vet of WWII, but anything Barry says is suspect to me at this point.
I'd rather watch Hillery try to drink beer.
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we had a couple of threads about BHO's memorial day escapades in the election forum here (http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,7856.0.html) and
here (http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,7839.0.html).
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Now some people are trying to say the great uncle was never in the army, maybe the navy - at the DUmp, they were prattling on about some fire burning down the records, but this uncle would been awarded medal, decorated, to the nth degree if he'd done all that.
What bothers me here is also that the MSM keeps referring to this as a "gaffe" - if it had been McCain, they would call it a "lie" instead. There they go, apologizing for him again.
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Now some people are trying to say the great uncle was never in the army, maybe the navy - at the DUmp, they were prattling on about some fire burning down the records, but this uncle would been awarded medal, decorated, to the nth degree if he'd done all that.
What bothers me here is also that the MSM keeps referring to this as a "gaffe" - if it had been McCain, they would call it a "lie" instead. There they go, apologizing for him again.
just like when former president billdo clenis brazenly lied through his teeth, they explained it away as "trying to be all things to all people". :thatsright: :whatever: :censored:
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http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachauscrapbook/DachauLiberation/LiberationDay3.html
Two Divisions of the US Seventh Army were involved in the liberation of the Dachau main camp on April 29, 1945, and with each passing year, the argument grows more heated over which division really liberated the camp, the 42nd Infantry Division or the 45th Infantry Division. The 20th Armored Division was providing support and they are included as liberators of Dachau by the US Army.
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Reported this morning, it was actually BO's great uncle on his mother's side. He actually liberated a concentration camp by himself.
(http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii59/Cane_Nation/missing_in_action.jpg)
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It might be hard to verify alot of WWLL individual records since there was a fire in St Louis during the late 70s,early 80s. Still I myself know at least where my own father served during WWII and that he was a POW of the Germans in a camp not all that far from Berlin. I can always find out the details from family members so a screw up like this made by Obama is pretty sad.
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I am going to give him half a pass on this. A relative in 3rd army helped liberate Buchenwald, which is a good thing.
However, every misplaced consonant by a conservative gets howls of derision and fault finding nit picking from the media. He should suffer the same level of scrutiny.
So he can get yelled at for failure to fact check, rather than out right manufacturing. But he still needs a call down.