All of which, if true, should have been what she said today, NOT that Obama might get assassinated.
She didn't say that Obama might get assassinated though. She was talking about campaigns going into June. For those that want or think she was trying to tell people to try to assinate Obama or some other scenario, what exactly do you think she was trying to accomplish? Is there any strategic gain that she could have thought to be found by bringing up RFK's assination? Is it really unreasonable to think that she was thinking of examples of campaigns going into June & remembered that RFK's did because he was assinated that month? Keep in mind this wasn't some speach but her sitting at a table answering question from an editorial board.
It seems to me the ones that are really exploiting RFK's assasination would be Obama's campaign.
Hillary today reportedly invoked Bobby Kennedy's June assassination as reason it's too early for her to concede in May
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.
It's almost like some subtle call to arms for some of her appalachian crazies.
I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't really mean to hint that someone should kill Barack Hussein Obama.
However, the remark is still completely indefensible. At best, she's invoking the hypothetical assassination of a former candidate mere days after that candidate's brother was diagnosed with cancer as a wildly desperate justification for staying in the race.
If it wasn't calcuated in the way whomod theorizes, it's still so wildly insensitive and stupid as to seriously damage any remaining credibility she had as a candidate for any high political office.
I disagree that this remark "seriously damages" Hillary Clinton's remaining credibility, G-man.
While her choice of words was a bit clumsy, all she did was cite several instances, including RFK's assasination during the 1968 primary season, and her own husband Bill Clinton's unlikely comeback in 1992, where the candidate who ended up running (and in Bill Clinton's case, elected) was much less likely a candidate at the point she's at in late May of the election cycle.
Bad choice of words by Hillary, open to interpretation that she was soliciting Obama's assassination, combined with being said within days of Ted Kennedy's hospitalization. But it probably stems from the fact that she (as well as Obama and McCain) have been campaigning about 12 hours a day, relentlessly. They're all bound to make a clumsy remark here and there. If her overall point was less valid, about her comparative viability at this stage, as compared to previous elections at this time, I might judge her remarks more harshly.
...I saw the apology as well - an apology to the Kennedy family, I might note, not to Senator Obama. Since some seem unwilling to point out why this remark was more than unfortunate, it is worth remembering that we have the first black candidate for president. You only have to spend a few minutes talking with African-Americans about this campaign to discover that the fear that Obama could be assassinated is very much on their minds. It is in everyone's subconscious, especially Michelle Obama's. To refer to the June assassination of Bobby Kennedy in the context of reasons to stay in this interminable race against Barack Obama is therefore catastrophically inappropriate. Coming after her pitch for "white votes", it is reckless....
Yes, this season has gone on for ever. And for Senator Clinton, it has now obviously gone on too long.
She's been waiting for Obama to implode. Instead, she just has.
[O]ne wonders how much longer Democratic elders will stay silent.
"This is beyond the pale," Rep. James Clyburn, an undeclared superdelegate and the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, told the New York Times.
Clinton just made a phenomenal political mistake, whatever her intent. Absent a primary or another significant political event over the Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., the assassination remark is all anyone will be talking about.
In the past few weeks, Clinton has repeatedly appealed for more time to make her case to voters, more time so Florida and Michigan could count.
She just gave Democrats a reason to say no.
Keith Olbermann:
Quote:
Since those awful words in Sioux Falls, and after the condescending, buck-passing statement from her spokesperson, Senator Clinton has made something akin to an apology, without any evident recognition of the true trauma she has inflicted.
"I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968," she said in **Brandon**, South Dakota.
"I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact.
Originally Posted By: Hillary Clinton
"The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy. I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive, I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever. "My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate in the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family."
Thanks.
Not a word about the inappropriateness of referencing assassination.
Not a word about the inappropriateness of implying -- whether it was intended or not -- that she was hanging around waiting for somebody to try something terrible.
Not a word about Senator Obama.
Not a word about Senator McCain. Not: I'm sorry...
Not: I apologize...
Not: I blew it...
Not: please forgive me.
God knows, Senator, in this campaign, this nation has **had** to forgive you, early and often...
And despite your now traditional position of the offended victim, the nation **has** forgiven you.
We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few.
We have forgiven you your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.
We have forgiven you your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia.
We have forgiven you insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.
We have forgiven you pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.
We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad...
We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.
We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion."
We have forgiven you quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.
We have forgiven you the 3 A-M Phone Call commercial.
We have forgiven you **President** Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's.
We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.
We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.
We have forgiven you your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.
We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.
We have forgiven you for boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"...
We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your **own** expense, and the Democratic **ticket's** expense.
But Senator, we cannot forgive you this.
"You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."
We cannot forgive you this -- not because it is crass and low and unfeeling and brutal.
**This** is **un**-forgivable, because this nation's deepest shame, its most enduring horror, its most terrifying legacy, is political assassination.
Lincoln. Garfield. McKinley. Kennedy. Malcolm X Martin Luther King. **Robert** Kennedy.
And, but for the grace of the universe or the luck of the draw, Reagan, Ford, Truman, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, even George Wallace.
The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time!
And to not appreciate, immediately -- to **still** not appreciate tonight -- just **what** you have done... is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead.
This, Senator, is too much.
Because a senator -- a politician -- a **person** -- who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot -- has no business being, and no capacity **to** be, the President of the United States.
No. The use of RFK undercuts the valid point. If, as she claims, her point was that a candidate can, by dint of hard work and increased public support, make a comeback late in the game, then the use of the Kennedy metaphor has no place in her list of examples. Eventual '68 nominee Hubert Humphrey didn't "come back" because of politics. He was nominated because the clear frontrunner-a young, popular, orator-was killed.
The only way that the Kennedy example makes sense was in the way that everyone took it: sometimes the young guy gets murdered in cold blood and the older, less popular, candidate has to step in.
At best it was a clumsy freudian slip and demonstrates what most of us have known for years: she really is a hateful bitch.
No. The use of RFK undercuts the valid point. If, as she claims, her point was that a candidate can, by dint of hard work and increased public support, make a comeback late in the game, then the use of the Kennedy metaphor has no place in her list of examples. Eventual '68 nominee Hubert Humphrey didn't "come back" because of politics. He was nominated because the clear frontrunner-a young, popular, orator-was killed.
The only way that the Kennedy example makes sense was in the way that everyone took it: sometimes the young guy gets murdered in cold blood and the older, less popular, candidate has to step in.
At best it was a clumsy freudian slip and demonstrates what most of us have known for years: she really is a hateful bitch.
Nope, if something horrible like that did happen to Obama, then Hillary would be next in line for the nomination even if she had dropped out. So the assasination itself was unimportant in her answer. She really was just thinking about campaigns going into June.
No. The use of RFK undercuts the valid point. If, as she claims, her point was that a candidate can, by dint of hard work and increased public support, make a comeback late in the game, then the use of the Kennedy metaphor has no place in her list of examples. Eventual '68 nominee Hubert Humphrey didn't "come back" because of politics. He was nominated because the clear frontrunner-a young, popular, orator-was killed.
The only way that the Kennedy example makes sense was in the way that everyone took it: sometimes the young guy gets murdered in cold blood and the older, less popular, candidate has to step in.
At best it was a clumsy freudian slip and demonstrates what most of us have known for years: she really is a hateful bitch.
I heard a caller make an almost similar analysis last night on Mike Malloy's radio show. It's a pretty good one too BTW.
I gotta agree that it did reveal Hillary to be a fucking ghoul. I wonder if she'd care to explain why she herself feels that her or john McCain don't have to worry as much about getting assassinated themselves.
And why is that the GENUINE people who advocate real social change are the ones who end up getting dead in this country?
I honestly think that after this, the clock really is ticking. Obama is almost there anyways so her threats of taking it to the convention will soon be rendered moot anyways i think. Once the primaries are finally over the superdelegates will move. In Obama's direction for the most part.
I'm even expecting Hillary to lose delegates. Many people who in the past have supported the long list that Olbermann outlined of forgivable Hillary actions, may think this is the last straw.
No. The use of RFK undercuts the valid point. If, as she claims, her point was that a candidate can, by dint of hard work and increased public support, make a comeback late in the game, then the use of the Kennedy metaphor has no place in her list of examples. Eventual '68 nominee Hubert Humphrey didn't "come back" because of politics. He was nominated because the clear frontrunner-a young, popular, orator-was killed.
The only way that the Kennedy example makes sense was in the way that everyone took it: sometimes the young guy gets murdered in cold blood and the older, less popular, candidate has to step in.
At best it was a clumsy freudian slip and demonstrates what most of us have known for years: she really is a hateful bitch.
You do reallize G-man that all that rightous anger Hillary is taking from Obama's supporters will be fully aimed at McCain if Obama gets the nomination?
I heard a caller make an almost similar analysis last night on Mike Malloy's radio show. It's a pretty good one too BTW.
I gotta agree that it did reveal Hillary to be a fucking ghoul. I wonder if she'd care to explain why she herself feels that her or john McCain don't have to worry as much about getting assassinated themselves.
And why is that the GENUINE people who advocate real social change are the ones who end up getting dead in this country?
I honestly think that after this, the clock really is ticking. Obama is almost there anyways so her threats of taking it to the convention will soon be rendered moot anyways i think. Once the primaries are finally over the superdelegates will move. In Obama's direction for the most part.
I'm even expecting Hillary to lose delegates. Many people who in the past have supported the long list that Olbermann outlined of forgivable Hillary actions, may think this is the last straw.
You say over and over that Obama is a candidate of "real change".
That is self-delusion on your part.
Obama's 130 "no contest" votes in the Illinois state Senate, his 20-year connection trading favors with the federally indicted Tony Rezko, his loyal votes (when he didn't evasively vote "not contest") for extreme-liberal positions on abortion and gun control, his race-baiting while pretending to be above the fray, and his waffling on any nomber of other issues including Rev Wright, ALL collectively convince me that Barack Hussein Obama is nothing but the same old Democrat in a new suit.
I see nothing in his extreme-liberal record to indicate Obama will "find the middle ground" and bring the nation together at some imagined political center everyone can agree on. Obama has been a liberal partisan from the start, and an evasive liar in the classic political mold.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
No. The use of RFK undercuts the valid point. If, as she claims, her point was that a candidate can, by dint of hard work and increased public support, make a comeback late in the game, then the use of the Kennedy metaphor has no place in her list of examples. Eventual '68 nominee Hubert Humphrey didn't "come back" because of politics. He was nominated because the clear frontrunner-a young, popular, orator-was killed.
The only way that the Kennedy example makes sense was in the way that everyone took it: sometimes the young guy gets murdered in cold blood and the older, less popular, candidate has to step in.
At best it was a clumsy freudian slip and demonstrates what most of us have known for years: she really is a hateful bitch.
I don't see it that way. I think she wanted to make a sympathetic reference to Ted Kennedy, and to the larger Kennedy legacy that has overshadowed the Democrat party for more than 4 decades (just as reference to Reagan always scores points with Republican voters) and the words just came out in a way that can be interpreted badly.
But her point is clear regardless: that any front runner can fall behind, and another candidate can rise to the nomination. And Hillary is only a hair's breadth behind Obama anyway. It's not like she was the equivalent of Dennis Kucinich in popularity.
Those slightly behind, or even far behind, can make an inspiring comeback. Just ask John McCain.
Do you think the Pubes stand a god chance of winning the fall election?
I seriously don't think McCain is doing the Repubes any favors what with his gaffe after gaffe on the most basic foreign policy issues. Something tha the claims is his strong point.
Well, this puts a dent in the idea that Obama is seen as the elitist of the 2 candidates. When McCain can't even remember if he owns 7 or 8 homes and fishes in his own private man-made lake in his spare time, who really is the elitist, eh?
WASHINGTON (AFP) - More American voters would enjoy a picnic with Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama than his rival Hillary Clinton, or Republican presidential contender John McCain, a poll said Friday.
Asked by Quinnipiac University which candidate they would prefer to picnic with on the holiday weekend marking Memorial Day on May 26, 35 percent chose Obama, 32 percent picked McCain and 27 percent said Clinton.
Beyond its anecdotal value, the poll suggests good news for Obama, who has been accused by critics of being too elitist and cut off from the average American.
The survey also showed that for 77 percent of the electorate, a candidate with a "likeable personality" was "very important" or "somewhat important."
"Senator Hillary Clinton has downed a few shots and beers recently to show she's a regular gal, but American voters would rather hang out with the guys," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The survey was taken May 8-12 and sampled 1,745 people. It had a margin of error of 2.4 percent.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, speaks during a Cuban Independence Day Celebration at the InterContinental Hotel in Miami, Florida. More American voters would enjoy a picnic with Obama than his rival Hillary Clinton, or Republican presidential contender John McCain, a poll said Friday.
You do reallize G-man that all that rightous anger Hillary is taking from Obama's supporters will be fully aimed at McCain if Obama gets the nomination?
I'm not criticizing Hillary because I think it helps McCain. As I said before, I'm not a believer in that whole "operation chaos" theory.
When I think Obama is wrong (e.g., Rev. Wright), I'll say so. When I think Hillary is wrong, as is the case here, I'll say so. And vice versa.
And, likewise, I've discussed what I see as both pros and cons with McCain.
Barack Obama is getting called out again for his knowledge of history, including his own family’s, after declaring to veterans on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
Two problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
Barack Obama is getting called out again for his knowledge of history, including his own family’s, after declaring to veterans on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
Two problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Obama Explains Auschwitz Remark: Dem hopeful says Memorial Day reference to 'uncle' who helped 'liberate' Polish death camp was a factual mixup.
Barack Hussein Obama seems to have a lot of those lately. Maybe early senility is setting in.
Ok, G-Man... I can't believe you're just as low as he rest of the gOP. Well, actually i can...
The other day Obama mentioned that his uncle, Charlie Payne, helped to liberate the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Republicans were hoping that they could catch Obama lying - that maybe Obama never had an uncle who helped liberate the Jews in Europe. Well, in fact, Obama's uncle (his grandmother's brother) helped liberate the Nazi camp at Buchenwald (Obama mixed up Auschwitz and Buchenwald). So the Republicans (and a few Hillary fans) are trying to allege... what exactly? That Obama's family did in fact help save the Jews in Europe, but Obama got the name of the camp he liberated wrong? Okay. I'm not quite sure how that gives us any insight into Obama (other than his uncle is a hero) - I don't really know the difference Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen Belsen and the rest of the camps. I just know that I'd be damn proud if a member of my family helped liberate them. Not to mention, according to the US Holocaust Museum, Obama's uncle's Infantry Division didn't just liberate one of the camps that made up Buchenwald. It was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by US troops in all of Germany. That's pretty amazing.
The RNC seized the opportunity to fire off a news release, saying that “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.”
The Obama campaign soon acknowledged that the Democratic candidate made a mistake. It explained that Obama’s great-uncle was in the 89th Infantry Division that helped liberate another notorious death camp, Buchenwald. Obama, the campaign said, “is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II -- especially the fact that his great-uncle was part of liberating of one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald.”
All of which raises the question: What's worse, Obama's apparent gaffe or the RNC pouncing on a Holocaust-related historical mistake for political advantage?
and this letter pretty much nails the stupidity of the GOP.
Quote:
Want to know how idiotic this is? The difference between Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen comes down to the fact that Auschwitz was specifically labeled an extermination camp, whereas the latter three are "merely" concentration camps where people were worked to death. One of the biggest myths surrounding the Holocaust is that every concentration camp was an extermination camp with crematoria. In fact, most were work camps where people were either worked to death, starved to death, shot, or murdered in ways so unthinkable that I cannot even imagine.
Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen, and 7 of my family members died at Dachau. I personally don't give a damn that Obama confused Buchenwald and Auschwitz, I'm personally glad that Obama's uncle, and his American/European/and yes, Soviet allies got there and put an end to it before the Nazi's (and their "appeasers") were able to kill, by cyanide or bullet to the head, one more innocent person.
Turning this into a political football is reprehensible, and as the daughter and granddaughter of Jews who currently reside in Florida, I can tell you that this jockeying is sickening to watch. And from the limited sample I have, it isn't doing the RNC any favors (I don't know if its hurting them, but it sure as hell isn't helping).
Kim Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Like i mentioned with Valerie Plame and John Kerry, it seems these Republican thugs like nothing better than to denigrate actual service to ones country and actual heroism for political advantage. This time it's going to blow back in their thug faces and they certainly deserve any ire coming their way. imagine that, Barak Obama's uncle helped liberate a concentration camp! It really must kill the gop who thought they'd paint this guy as some Muslim foreigner.
whomod, I remember a few weeks ago, when John McCain made a simple slip of the tongue, the kind you claim Obama made here, and you went on about how this seemed to indicate that Sen. McCain was going senile. Now we are faced with what appears to be a growing pattern of such 'slips' by Obama.
Therefore, by your own logic, we have every right to inquire into Obama's mental state.
Barack Obama backpedaled from a promise to meet with Iran's leader - but that didn't prevent a scorching attack yesterday from Republican rival John McCain.
Obama noted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map - might not even be in office in 2009 when an Obama administration would begin, and that clerics hold most of the power in Iran.
But during a presidential debate earlier this year that featured questions from YouTube viewers, Obama didn't hesitate when asked if he would hold talks with the heads of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.
Campaigning in Colorado, McCain stepped up his foreign-policy assault on Obama.
"Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades," McCain said
Maybe this is another of Obama's early onset Alzheimers' symptoms. He forgot his earlier position.
Barack Obama is getting called out again for his knowledge of history, including his own family’s, after declaring to veterans on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
Two problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Obama Explains Auschwitz Remark: Dem hopeful says Memorial Day reference to 'uncle' who helped 'liberate' Polish death camp was a factual mixup.
Barack Hussein Obama seems to have a lot of those lately. Maybe early senility is setting in.
Ok, G-Man... I can't believe you're just as low as he rest of the gOP. Well, actually i can...
The other day Obama mentioned that his uncle, Charlie Payne, helped to liberate the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Republicans were hoping that they could catch Obama lying - that maybe Obama never had an uncle who helped liberate the Jews in Europe. Well, in fact, Obama's uncle (his grandmother's brother) helped liberate the Nazi camp at Buchenwald (Obama mixed up Auschwitz and Buchenwald). So the Republicans (and a few Hillary fans) are trying to allege... what exactly? That Obama's family did in fact help save the Jews in Europe, but Obama got the name of the camp he liberated wrong? Okay. I'm not quite sure how that gives us any insight into Obama (other than his uncle is a hero) - I don't really know the difference Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen Belsen and the rest of the camps. I just know that I'd be damn proud if a member of my family helped liberate them. Not to mention, according to the US Holocaust Museum, Obama's uncle's Infantry Division didn't just liberate one of the camps that made up Buchenwald. It was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by US troops in all of Germany. That's pretty amazing.
The RNC seized the opportunity to fire off a news release, saying that “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.”
The Obama campaign soon acknowledged that the Democratic candidate made a mistake. It explained that Obama’s great-uncle was in the 89th Infantry Division that helped liberate another notorious death camp, Buchenwald. Obama, the campaign said, “is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II -- especially the fact that his great-uncle was part of liberating of one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald.”
All of which raises the question: What's worse, Obama's apparent gaffe or the RNC pouncing on a Holocaust-related historical mistake for political advantage?
and this letter pretty much nails the stupidity of the GOP.
Quote:
Want to know how idiotic this is? The difference between Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen comes down to the fact that Auschwitz was specifically labeled an extermination camp, whereas the latter three are "merely" concentration camps where people were worked to death. One of the biggest myths surrounding the Holocaust is that every concentration camp was an extermination camp with crematoria. In fact, most were work camps where people were either worked to death, starved to death, shot, or murdered in ways so unthinkable that I cannot even imagine.
Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen, and 7 of my family members died at Dachau. I personally don't give a damn that Obama confused Buchenwald and Auschwitz, I'm personally glad that Obama's uncle, and his American/European/and yes, Soviet allies got there and put an end to it before the Nazi's (and their "appeasers") were able to kill, by cyanide or bullet to the head, one more innocent person.
Turning this into a political football is reprehensible, and as the daughter and granddaughter of Jews who currently reside in Florida, I can tell you that this jockeying is sickening to watch. And from the limited sample I have, it isn't doing the RNC any favors (I don't know if its hurting them, but it sure as hell isn't helping).
Kim Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Like i mentioned with Valerie Plame and John Kerry, it seems these Republican thugs like nothing better than to denigrate actual service to ones country and actual heroism for political advantage. This time it's going to blow back in their thug faces and they certainly deserve any ire coming their way. imagine that, Barak Obama's uncle helped liberate a concentration camp! It really must kill the gop who thought they'd paint this guy as some Muslim foreigner.
Obama Praised by America's Foes: The Democratic frontrunner has found himself to be a magnet for unwanted praise from many of America's enemies.
The odd thing, however, is this: recently Obama bragged how his heritage and Muslim middle name would make people in other countries (which, of course, would include countries that are our "enemy") welcome him as our president. Now, that they are doing so, he's suddenly finds that praise "unwanted"?
Barack Obama backpedaled from a promise to meet with Iran's leader - but that didn't prevent a scorching attack yesterday from Republican rival John McCain.
Obama noted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map - might not even be in office in 2009 when an Obama administration would begin, and that clerics hold most of the power in Iran.
But during a presidential debate earlier this year that featured questions from YouTube viewers, Obama didn't hesitate when asked if he would hold talks with the heads of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.
Campaigning in Colorado, McCain stepped up his foreign-policy assault on Obama.
"Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades," McCain said
Maybe this is another of Obama's early onset Alzheimers' symptoms. He forgot his earlier position.
Watch and learn:
You know, we elect leaders who make claims based on facts, not on the assumptions of 'average Americans' who aern't that well versed on the Iranian political hiearchy.
It's sort of like Ted Stevens again repeating the McCain line that Al Queda is in Iran. No wonder Iraq is a custefuk. These people don't even know basic foreign policy facts.
With the Obama claim that he said he'd meet with Ahmadinejad, I can understand it being just lying to people about what Obama said for political advantage. Hell, it's what got us into Iraq. But with many other facts, it just seems the gOP are really clueless.
Barack Obama is getting called out again for his knowledge of history, including his own family’s, after declaring to veterans on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
Two problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Obama Explains Auschwitz Remark: Dem hopeful says Memorial Day reference to 'uncle' who helped 'liberate' Polish death camp was a factual mixup.
Barack Hussein Obama seems to have a lot of those lately. Maybe early senility is setting in.
Not to belabor the point, but you should read this. The folks running the Web site for the 89th Infantry Division, the division that liberated one of the sub-camps of Buchenwald (whose members include Obama's uncle), issued a statement about Obama's uncle and this "work" camp.
Quote:
Concerning the service of Mr. Charles Payne: C.T. Payne was a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division. He served in the 355th Infantry Regiment, Company K. The 355th Infantry Regiment was the unit to liberate Ohrdruf. Mr. Payne was there.
For those who seek to minimize the horrors of Ohrdruf since it was a 'work' camp and not a 'death' camp, we have but one word: shame. Ironically, this argument has been made to us time and time again by various Holocaust-deniers and other pro-Nazi groups. We will let the testimony of survivors and veterans speak for themselves.
"It has been recorded that in Ordruf itself the last days were a slaughterhouse. We were shot at, beaten and molested. At every turn went on the destruction of the remaining inmates. Indiscriminant criminal behavior (like the murderers of Oklahoma City some days ago). Some days before the first Americans appeared at the gates of Ordruf, the last retreating Nazi guards managed to execute with hand pistols, literally emptying their last bullets on whomever they encountered leaving them bleeding to death as testified by an American of the 37th Tank Battalion Medical section, 10 a.m. April 4, 1945.
Today I'm privileged thanks to G-d and you gallant fighting men. I'm here to reminisce, and reflect, and experience instant recollections of those moments. Those horrible scenes and that special instance when an Allied soldier outstretched his arm to help me up became my re-entrance, my being re-invited into humanity and restoring my inalienable right to a dignified existence as a human being and as a Jew. Something, which was denied me from September 1939 to the day of liberation in 1945. I had no right to live and survived, out of 80 members of my family, the infernal ordeal of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ordruf, and its satellite camp Crawinkle and finally Theresinstadt Ghetto-Concentration Camp."
Rabbi Murray Kohn
Yep. Those lying Obama partisans of the 89th Infantry Division.
Seriously G-Man, when wil you you realize what depths you and the gOP sink to in order to cling to your quickly diminishing power? These guys just compared the right wing spinmeisters to Nazi's and Holocaust deniers (um, like the Iranian President?.
Really, just step back.
Quote:
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. - Abraham Lincoln
My grandfather was stationed in Italy during WWII, but I'm pretty damn sure that he's one of the dudes who raised the flag at Iwo Jima.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
My grandfather was a sharecropper in Louisiana during WWI cuz, for the most part...in the deep south...blacks weren't allowed to participate in defending the country. He volunteered and was turned away because they said he couldn't read. Amazingly enough, he did know how to read. AND write.
My father was in the Army from 1945 to 1948. He was stationed in, I think, New Jersey working as a laborer.
Oderint, dum metuant.
You are a god damned idiot, you know that? You ought to be smacked upside your dumb-fuck head, even after all these years. Shame on you!
In all honesty, I don't really see the big deal in the statement itself. I mean, Obama's great uncle was in the military and involved with bringing down a camp built to work Jews to death. Where I see this being a problem is when you add it to the other little mistakes or 'metaphors' that Obama has used during his campaign, it just makes it seem more and more like he's being your average politician and saying what he thinks will get him elected, truthful or not. This is hardly as bad as Hillary and the Bosnian sniper.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
In all honesty, I don't really see the big deal in the statement itself. I mean, Obama's great uncle was in the military and involved with bringing down a camp built to work Jews to death. Where I see this being a problem is when you add it to the other little mistakes or 'metaphors' that Obama has used during his campaign, it just makes it seem more and more like he's being your average politician and saying what he thinks will get him elected, truthful or not. This is hardly as bad as Hillary and the Bosnian sniper.
I don't disagree. However, as noted earlier, whenever McCain makes a gaffe, even a more minor one, whomod claims that such gaffes are evidence that a candidate is either a devious liar or senile (depending on which blog he cut and pasted it from). Accordingly, I think its fair to point out Obama's consistent pattern of making similar, or even more egregious, misstatements.
Getting back to Obama, I agree that some "gaffes" are worse than others and probably his worst was when he called white people in small towns "bitter" and clinging to guns and religion.
That was in a relaxed setting (a small private fundraiser) and the candidate was surrounded by like minded people. I doubt the misstatement was caused by being tired or nervous. More likely, Obama felt at ease enough to express what he really thinks about a large segment of the U.S. population.
And knowing that's how he feels is pretty disturbing.
