On Memorial Day, at a campaign stop in New Mexico, Senator Obama made a statement, of which I quote one part: "I had a [sic] uncle who was one of the...um...who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps..." click here to listen
He was referring to his mother's side of his family, and a story that had been repeated in his family since the end of WW II. As it turns out, his mother did not have a brother. And, it was the 322nd Rifle Division of the Soviet Red Army that liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, not the U.S. Army.
After being criticized for these errors, the Obama campaign clarified the remarks by saying it was Senator Obama's Great Uncle, not Uncle, who had participated in the liberation of one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.
Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945 by the Sixth Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army, commanded by General George Patton. Prior to the Americans arrival, the Communist prisoners of the camp had taken it over, killing some guards and forcing the remainder of the camp security forces to flee.
I understand the pride that family stories have, as part of each family's oral tradition. They bond generations together. They provide strength and morality upon which to draw during times when the larger community or nation can provide neither.
This is my beef: Stories like this, especially family stories, should be fact-checked several times before being spoken, especially during a political campaign when every candidate's credibility is on the line every day. The Obama staff must have someone who proofreads his speeches. That person must be fired and replaced immediately. If there is nobody on staff with that responsibility, HIRE TWO NOW! Let each speech be checked by one, and double-checked by the other.
And Senator Obama is not blameless in this matter. The buck stops at the top. He should have known the emotional power his statement would have on Memorial Day. He himself should have Googled 'Liberation of Auschwitz'. When the details of the parts are verified, the whole becomes much stronger and more impressive.
President Reagan was fond of the phrase, "Trust, but verify." Senator Obama would be wise to reach across the aisle and incorporate that bit of Republican philosophy into his own.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Hillary Opens Mouth and Inserts Foot (again)
Hillary Clinton, in a crude attempt to justify her continued candidacy for the Democratic nomination, used Robert Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 as an example of why she has not dropped out. click here
Is she so desperate, or so stupid, as to think that the American people won't see through her statement and be rightfully appalled by it? Thank you Hillary, for hanging in there in case Barack Obama is assassinated, like RKF was, so the Democratic party will have a live candidate to fall back upon. How thoughtful of you to anticipate political violence of the worst kind. How small-minded. How grotesque and self-serving. How easy to take the low road and position yourself as the beneficiary of someone else's death.
Beyond the indignation which will come crashing down upon her for her statement from citizens of the USA, imagine the reaction of the rest of the world. Will we wake up tomorrow and find our standing around the world in any way diminished by what she has said? Unfortunately, yes. For Hillary, as a U.S. senator, presidential candidate, and former first lady, occupies a unique place, and thereby represents the USA to the world in a unique way. This requires her to be uniquely careful about what she says. She has failed the USA and our great country will pay the price.
Hillary, try to find your moral compass. Then, change its setting from pointing towards you and your ego, and take your carpetbag back to New York.
Is she so desperate, or so stupid, as to think that the American people won't see through her statement and be rightfully appalled by it? Thank you Hillary, for hanging in there in case Barack Obama is assassinated, like RKF was, so the Democratic party will have a live candidate to fall back upon. How thoughtful of you to anticipate political violence of the worst kind. How small-minded. How grotesque and self-serving. How easy to take the low road and position yourself as the beneficiary of someone else's death.
Beyond the indignation which will come crashing down upon her for her statement from citizens of the USA, imagine the reaction of the rest of the world. Will we wake up tomorrow and find our standing around the world in any way diminished by what she has said? Unfortunately, yes. For Hillary, as a U.S. senator, presidential candidate, and former first lady, occupies a unique place, and thereby represents the USA to the world in a unique way. This requires her to be uniquely careful about what she says. She has failed the USA and our great country will pay the price.
Hillary, try to find your moral compass. Then, change its setting from pointing towards you and your ego, and take your carpetbag back to New York.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Hillary Misspeaks Again...or Does She?
The May 9, 2008 Chicago Tribune referred to a USA Today interview with Hillary Clinton. I had to read her quote several times before I believed it. The quote was, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." She cited an Associated Press article "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me." click here to read more
To whom is she pandering with statements like that? Let's dissect the phrase: "...working, hardworking Americans, white Americans..." By using "working", followed immediately by "hardworking" and "white" meant that all three words are related to one another, and are adjectives of, "Americans." Perhaps the punctuation between "Americans" and "white" should have more properly been a dash - rather than a comma, so as the read, "...working, hardworking Americans - white Americans..." By limiting her apparent definition of hardworking Americans to white Americans in this way, she did not allow that there are other hardworking Americans who are Asian, Hispanic, African-American, et cetera.
I hope she was just misspeaking again, as seems to her wont at times. I hope that she was not appealing to some base emotion that should have been eradicated by now. As you can see, hope is something in which I fervently believe. And so I close with the hope that my April 17 prediction of Clinton and Obama supporters uniting will come true. But please, Hillary, think about your words before you say them. I know it's difficult when making speech after speech, sitting for interview after interview. Actually, you shouldn't have to think about your words to ensure that they don't sound like code. Your words should flow freely and express what's in your heart, not be what's politically expedient.
To whom is she pandering with statements like that? Let's dissect the phrase: "...working, hardworking Americans, white Americans..." By using "working", followed immediately by "hardworking" and "white" meant that all three words are related to one another, and are adjectives of, "Americans." Perhaps the punctuation between "Americans" and "white" should have more properly been a dash - rather than a comma, so as the read, "...working, hardworking Americans - white Americans..." By limiting her apparent definition of hardworking Americans to white Americans in this way, she did not allow that there are other hardworking Americans who are Asian, Hispanic, African-American, et cetera.
I hope she was just misspeaking again, as seems to her wont at times. I hope that she was not appealing to some base emotion that should have been eradicated by now. As you can see, hope is something in which I fervently believe. And so I close with the hope that my April 17 prediction of Clinton and Obama supporters uniting will come true. But please, Hillary, think about your words before you say them. I know it's difficult when making speech after speech, sitting for interview after interview. Actually, you shouldn't have to think about your words to ensure that they don't sound like code. Your words should flow freely and express what's in your heart, not be what's politically expedient.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Verdict on Rev. Wright - Not as simple as Black and White
When I originally planned to opine on the subject of Rev. Wright, all I knew about him was the sound bites I'd seen on TV. That, and the anger I felt towards him for causing Senator Obama such difficulty in the Pennsylvania primary and beyond. I even wondered why Obama had not made a clean break with Wright after the initial revelations concerning Wright's views on 9/11, AIDS, et cetera were made public. The title I'd chosen for today's post was, "Who will benefit most from an Obama loss?". My answer was to have been: Rev. Wright, as an Obama loss would have added fuel to Wright's fire and given him greater publicity than he already was enjoying. This was going to be an easy post...a simple rant against someone who was so obviously two-dimensionally evil. But then...
I saw Wright on TV this week challenge someone who had asked him a question concerning his opinion that the USA brought 9/11 upon itself by its prior actions. He asked her if she had read the entire sermon from which his quote had been taken. She admitted that she had not. He then dismissed the question. That was rude of him, but it made me think. I had to find the sermon. My initial search came up short. I did not find the text of the sermon. However, I did find the web site of Wright's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ: click here to read more
After perusing the site, I learned that his church is about a mile from where I grew up. It is not a wealthy neighborhood (see the Village Keepers ministry on the web site's Ministries tab). The area was all white when I grew up there, and it is now virtually all African-American. Chicago was, and possibly still is, the most segregated big city in the USA. But that's the subject of a future blog. When Wright came to the church in 1972, there were 87 members. There are now over 6000. But what really impressed me were the ministries (outreach programs) that Wright organized to help: senior citizens, students, cancer survivors, the unemployed, victims of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abusers, HIV/AIDS sufferers, those in need of legal aid, and young men and women are provided "Coming Into Manhood" and "Coming Into Womanhood" rites of passage counseling. Note that these are just some of the Ministries listed.
Reading about this on the internet gave me pause in my condemnation of Wright. How could a man who spent over 30 years building a church that ministered to not only spiritual, but also very down-to-earth daily struggles, be all bad? How could I pass such harsh judgment on him? I haven't walked a mile in Rev. Wright's shoes. Then I realized that neither had Senator Obama. And Obama has the wisdom to recognize that. And THAT is why he did not sever his ties with Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ in the very beginning. It took Rev. Wright's comments earlier this week to finally push Obama over the precipice, resulting in his eventual denunciation of Wright.
I still have not read the full 9/11 sermon so I'll reserve judgment on that. However, I do find Wright guilty of mistreating a friend and using him to garner publicity of a most tawdry type. Wright should have withheld his speech defending himself until after the Democratic primaries were over. He was aware that his appearance on national TV a week before the crucial Indiana and North Carolina primaries would have a negative effect on Obama's campaign. We will see on Tuesday, May 6 exactly how much damage was caused.
I saw Wright on TV this week challenge someone who had asked him a question concerning his opinion that the USA brought 9/11 upon itself by its prior actions. He asked her if she had read the entire sermon from which his quote had been taken. She admitted that she had not. He then dismissed the question. That was rude of him, but it made me think. I had to find the sermon. My initial search came up short. I did not find the text of the sermon. However, I did find the web site of Wright's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ: click here to read more
After perusing the site, I learned that his church is about a mile from where I grew up. It is not a wealthy neighborhood (see the Village Keepers ministry on the web site's Ministries tab). The area was all white when I grew up there, and it is now virtually all African-American. Chicago was, and possibly still is, the most segregated big city in the USA. But that's the subject of a future blog. When Wright came to the church in 1972, there were 87 members. There are now over 6000. But what really impressed me were the ministries (outreach programs) that Wright organized to help: senior citizens, students, cancer survivors, the unemployed, victims of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abusers, HIV/AIDS sufferers, those in need of legal aid, and young men and women are provided "Coming Into Manhood" and "Coming Into Womanhood" rites of passage counseling. Note that these are just some of the Ministries listed.
Reading about this on the internet gave me pause in my condemnation of Wright. How could a man who spent over 30 years building a church that ministered to not only spiritual, but also very down-to-earth daily struggles, be all bad? How could I pass such harsh judgment on him? I haven't walked a mile in Rev. Wright's shoes. Then I realized that neither had Senator Obama. And Obama has the wisdom to recognize that. And THAT is why he did not sever his ties with Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ in the very beginning. It took Rev. Wright's comments earlier this week to finally push Obama over the precipice, resulting in his eventual denunciation of Wright.
I still have not read the full 9/11 sermon so I'll reserve judgment on that. However, I do find Wright guilty of mistreating a friend and using him to garner publicity of a most tawdry type. Wright should have withheld his speech defending himself until after the Democratic primaries were over. He was aware that his appearance on national TV a week before the crucial Indiana and North Carolina primaries would have a negative effect on Obama's campaign. We will see on Tuesday, May 6 exactly how much damage was caused.
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