World Events
Topic: 57 States-Well my teachers taught me wrong

#	Author	Message
31	Darkbeer Tue 5/27/2008 6:10p	http://www.reuters.com/article...&sp=true >>Democrat Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp after Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp. Obama's campaign said the candidate meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz. "Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.<<
32	imadisneygal Wed 5/28/2008 6:08a	Yeah, because Buchenwald was practically a holiday camp in comparison to Auschwitz. (rolling eyes)
33	Dabob2 Wed 5/28/2008 9:31a	I actually saw a US veteran at a Memorial Day event about 10 years ago also speak to his experiences about "liberating Auschwitz." I silently thought "you were in the Russian army?" But "Auschwitz" has become short-hand for "concentration camp" to a lot of people, plus the guy was getting up there. If a guy can get it wrong about his OWN experience, what's the big deal with getting it wrong about your uncle's, and then correcting it? It's not like his uncle's experience liberating Buchenwald is any less noble.
34	WilliamK99 Wed 5/28/2008 9:36a	I wonder if his uncle freed Buchenwald while undergoing Sniper Fire? That's the real question here.
35	Darkbeer Wed 5/28/2008 1:57p	Here is a good article describing a lot of Senator Obama's gaffe's... http://www.mediaresearch.org/B...0528.asp >>Imagine that John McCain named a young running mate to campaign with him, and this national rookie suggested America had 58 states, repeatedly used the wrong names for the cities he was visiting, and honored a Memorial Day crowd by acknowledging the "fallen heroes" who were present, somehow alive and standing in the audience. How long would it take for the national media to see another Dan Quayle caricature? Let's raise the stakes. What if it was the GOP presidential candidate making these thoroughly ridiculous comments? This scenario is very real, except it isn't McCain. It's the other fellow. ABC reporter Jake Tapper follows politicians around for a living. On his blog, he suggested Barack Obama has a problem: "The man has been a one-man gaffe machine." Just in the last few days, in Sunrise, Florida, Obama said, "How's it going, Sunshine?" He did the same thing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, calling it "Sioux City." Some of his geographic struggles seem calculated. When asked why Hillary Clinton trounced him in Kentucky, Obama claimed "I'm not very well known in that part of the country...Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." But Obama's home state of Illinois is more than "near" Kentucky - it borders Kentucky. In Oregon, there was a doozy. Obama said of his long campaign, "I've been in fifty-seven states, I think, one left to go." No one in the press made much of this. As former ABC political reporter Marc Ambinder, now with the Atlantic Monthly magazine, admitted: "But if John McCain did this - if he mistakenly said he'd visited 57 states - the media would be all up in his grill, accusing him of a senior moment." If you doubt him, remember how most media outlets noted, then underlined McCain's error about al-Qaeda being trained and funded by Iran. In New Mexico, Obama suggested he was like a young Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense," with the ability to see dead people: "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." Fallen heroes in the audience? Is this Barack Potatoe Obama? This is precisely the kind of misstatement that Dan Quayle-bashers would run ad infinitum. But there have also been gaffes on more serious matters. ABC found that campaigning in Rush Limbaugh's hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama argued that our military's Arabic translators in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan: "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan," he claimed. But Afghans don't speak Arabic; they speak several other languages. That's a lot like McCain's gaffe - except for the degree of media attention, which in the Democrat's case was virtually nonexistent. McCain also would have enjoyed more media focus on Obama's completely muddled analysis of South America last week. He told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday that he would meet with Chavez to discuss "the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about." But on Friday in Miami, he insisted any country supporting the Marxist guerillas of FARC should suffer "regional isolation." This left Obama advisers scrambling to suggest that these two opposing statements can somehow be put together, that he can meet Chavez and isolate him at the same time. Sometimes, Obama invents Bosnia-sniper-style whoppers about his personal history. In Selma, Alabama, Obama claimed that the spirit of hope derived from the civil rights protests in Selma in 1965 inspired his birth - when he was born in 1961. He also has inaccurately claimed that the Kennedys funded his Kenyan father's trip to America in 1959. While he was making boo-boos in New Mexico on Memorial Day, Obama also (according to CBS reporter/blogger Maria Gavrilovic) talked about post-traumatic stress disorder by claiming he had an uncle "who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz," and then came home and spent six months in an attic. Gavrilovic didn't note that the prisoners at Auschwitz were liberated by the Red Army. Obama earlier made the claim on his campaign site that his grandfather knew American troops who liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka (also liberated by the Red Army). Everyone should grant these candidates a little room for error in the long slog of presidential campaigning. But what about some balance? The same national media that turned Dan Quayle's name into an instant joke are now working over time to present Obama as Captain Competent.<<
36	DAR Wed 5/28/2008 2:05p	<<Just in the last few days, in Sunrise, Florida, Obama said, "How's it going, Sunshine?">> HEEEELLLLOOOOO SUNSHINE ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!?!?!?!
37	imadisneygal Wed 5/28/2008 2:27p	^^^If he would have added "State" he would have been right on! Otherwise, this whole Auschwitz vs. Buchenwald story is a big yawn.
38	Dabob2 Wed 5/28/2008 2:46p	With the possible exception of the FARC one, those gaffes are essentially much ado about nothing (as were most of the Quayle gaffes). Even the need for Arabic speakers in Afghanistan makes a certain sense if we're looking for Al Qaeda holdouts there (though they're probably over the border in Pakistan). McCain has had a serious of more serious gaffes in the past few months that have all gotten a free ride while the media concentrates on the Democratic race. If the author of that piece is truly looking for "balance," he should look there.
39	Darkbeer Fri 5/30/2008 7:45a	From today's Wall Street Journal... http://online.wsj.com/article_...299.html >>For months, Barack Obama has had the image of an incandescent, golden-tongued Wundercandidate. That image may be fraying now. As smart and credentialed as he is, Sen. Obama is often an indifferent speaker without a teleprompter. He has large gaps in his knowledge base, and is just as likely to dig in and embrace a policy misstatement as abandon it. ABC reporter Jake Tapper calls him "a one-man gaffe machine." Take the Auschwitz flub, where Mr. Obama erroneously claimed last weekend in New Mexico that his uncle helped liberate the Nazi concentration camp. Reporters noted Mr. Obama's revised claim, that it was his great uncle who helped liberate Buchenwald. They largely downplayed the error. Yet in another, earlier gaffe back in 2002, Mr. Obama claimed his grandfather knew U.S. troops who liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka - even though only Russian troops entered those concentration camps. That hardly disqualifies Mr. Obama from being president. But you can bet that if Hillary Clinton had done the same thing it would have been the focus of much more attention, especially after her Bosnia sniper-fire fib. That's because gaffes are often blown up or downplayed based on whether or not they further a story line the media has attached to a politician. When John McCain claimed, while on a trip to Iraq in March, that Sunni (as opposed to Shiite) militants in Iraq are being supported by Iran, coverage of the alleged blunder tracked Democratic attacks on his age and stamina. (In fact, Iran may well be supplying both Sunni and Shiite militants.) Dan Quayle, tagged with a reputation as a dumb blond male, never lived down his misspelling of "potatoe." Mr. Obama, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, has largely been given a pass for his gaffes. Many are trivial, such as his suggestion this month that America has 57 states, and his bizarre statement in a Memorial Day speech in New Mexico that America's "fallen heroes" were present and listening to him in the audience.<< More at the link...
40	SingleParkPassholder Fri 5/30/2008 12:12p	What's your point, Darkbeer?

All times are Pacific Time (US)

Note: Information on the discussion boards is sometimes based on rumors or incorrect information and should not be assumed true. Messages do not necessarily reflect the opinion of LaughingPlace.com or its editors.

More messages:

1-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-41

< Previous Topic

Next Topic >

You must be a registered user to post messages.
Click here to register.
After registration you will automatically be brought back to this topic

Disneyland Attraction Posters at
The LaughingPlace Store
The LaughingPlace Store now carries a Disneyland Attraction Posters from Sanders CC Gallery

What's on
The Latest
LP Guide to Bolt updated
Bolt Across America Cross-Country Journey Culminates at Red Carpet Premiere of "Bolt" 16 week tour visits 32 cities, raising awareness for the movie and for the ASPCA
Beauty and the Beast to be released in 3D in 2010
Disney's New Five-Picture Deal With IMAX to Begin With 'A Christmas Carol'
Buffalo International Film Festival presents a film benefit celebrating Mickey's 80th birthday December 13th
Disney's Hawai'i Project Begins with Ground Blessing
The Lion King to perform as part of 2008 Royal Variety Performance and BBC Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night
Walt Disney Imagineering Earns Four Thea Awards
Travel Industry Honors Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo
The Walt Disney Company Grants $1.5 Million to Reforest Fire-Ravaged Areas in Southern California

Click here for The Latest