"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans
began to slow and our planet began to heal"
Barack Hussein Obama
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Items are archived in the order of
their discovery |
The Bomb
Gaffe |
Despite his huge support staff, Obama still manages to screw up
basic American historical facts -- from a speech in West
Lafayette, Indiana (CNN
transcripts) (video).
"Throughout our history, America's confronted constantly evolving
danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the
frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat
of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by
an ever-changing world."
The History Place
tells
us that the Japanese attack force under the command of Admiral Nagumo,
consisting of six carriers with 423 planes -- according to the
Obamamessiah, ONLY ONE HAD A BOMB!
Eight battleships were damaged, with five sunk. Three light
cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were lost along with
188 aircraft. The casualty list included 2,335 servicemen and 68
civilians killed, with 1,178 wounded. Included are 1,104 men
aboard the Battleship USS Arizona.
That must have been "some bomb" - eh, Obama? |
My Dad's A Veteran |
In June 2008, Obama Falsely Claimed
His Father Served In World War II:
Obama: "My father served in World War II, and when he came home, he got
the services that he needed." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The NALEO
Conference, Washington, DC, 6/28/08) |
Where Do I
Work Gaffe |
In this video, Obama
refers to the Banking Committee as "my
committee."
Obama: "Just this past week, we passed out of the
U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill…" (Obama
Press Conference, Sderot, Israel, July 23, 2008) (video)
The problem is, Obama is not on the Banking Committee and is not on
any of its subcommittees.
This probably explains why Obama never called a meeting of his
subcommittee on European relations to discuss the NATO effort in
Afghanistan.
He hasn't been at work in the U. S. Senate enough to even
know what his committee assignments are. He's too busy campaigning
in Europe on the taxpayers dime.
This certainly should give the voter the impression that Obama hasn't got a
handle on his current job, let alone the one for which he’s
campaigning. |
Obama Speaks Austrian |
Obama
responding to a question from an Austrian reporter at the 2009 G-20
Meeting:
At a news conference
afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced
him that "political interaction in Europe is not that different from the
United States Senate," where he served before entering the White House.
"There’s a lot of -- I don’t know what the term is in Austrian --
wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and
everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular
politics..."
Tricky language,
Austrian. |
Cinco de Cuatro |
Mary Katharine Ham likes
to note these
little incidents when they happen, not because she thinks it makes Obama
an idiot because he occasionally stumbles over his words, but because
his somewhat overblown reputation as the most cerebral, eloquent,
utterly erudite president of all time could really use a pricking every
now and then.
Also, because if Bush had made such a blunder, it
would have been the basis of a four-part MSNBC investigative series on
the malapropism's deleterious effects on the Republican Party's attempts
to woo Hispanic voters, Mexican-American relations, and our "place in
the world."
So, Obama, Mary Katharine will not turn your tendency
to misspeak (and, then reprimand your Teleprompter) into an
international incident, but she will note it with some glee:
On
the eve of the Mexican holiday, Obama on Monday had an event in the East
Room of the White House with Mexico's Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.
Obama joked
that it was "Cinco de Cuatro," botching a play on the Spanish word for
"four" when he meant to say "Cuatro de Mayo," or the Fourth of May. He
tried again, but he still did not get it right.
This from a
unilingual man who's embarrassed that more of us can't speak French and
suggested that we all learn Spanish. If only he were as conversant in
Spanish as he is in noted non-language "Austrian," this wouldn't have
happened.
The literal translation of "cinco de cuatro" is "five
of four." Maybe Obama was talking about the time of day? He
quits working at 4 PM -- it's in his union contract -- and was just
warning all present that he was done for the day -- he gets
tired, you know. |
Obama Flunks World War II History |
Obama is a history buff. When
he makes a political point he instinctively reaches for the historical
parallel: the Lincolnesque "team of rivals" making up his cabinet,
Winston Churchill's attitude to torture or his own family's experience
of World War II.
The only
problem is that he sometimes gets
history wrong. His plan to visit Buchenwald is in part a tribute to his
great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a satellite camp. Last May, however, Obama said that his
uncle "was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz."
Republicans pointed out that it was the Soviets who liberated Auschwitz.
"Unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way
Obama's statement can be true," a Republican spokesman said. The
Democratic candidate issued a correction, but critical historians have
found earlier examples of Obama's elastic approach to the facts. In
2002 he cited the wartime experiences of his grandfather, Stanley
Dunham. "My grandfather...heard the stories of fellow troops who first
entered Auschwitz and Treblinka."
Treblinka, like Auschwitz, is
in Poland, and was also liberated by Soviet troops. Last week Obama
extrapolated from another historical example -- the prohibition of
torture in wartime Britain -- to conclude: "Churchill said 'We don't
torture' when ... all of the British people were being subjected to
unimaginable risk and threat." Historians pounced again, pointing out
there was no record of Churchill explicitly banning torture.
In
fact, a November 2005 story in the Guardian
details torture by British soldiers between 1940 and 1948, at the
Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre -- known as the "London
Cage" -- run by MI19, responsible for interrogating enemy prisoners of
war.
The Guardian concluded that the London Cage "was used
partly as a torture centre," where 3,573 German officers and soldiers
were brutally interrogated. SS Captain Fritz Knoechlein, taken to
the Cage in October 1946, alleged he was starved, beaten and kept awake
for four days straight. |
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