I must say, this is a pretty big embarrassment for the Obama campaign. In a Memorial Day speech, Obama claimed that his uncle was one of the liberators at Auschwitz during WWII as a member of the American military. One big problem with this statement: The Americans were not the ones to liberate the soldiers at Auschwitz. Rather, it was the Soviet Union that liberated this particular Nazi concentration camp. If Obama’s uncle really was at Auschwitz, that means he must have been a member of the (Red) Soviet Army.
The Obama campaign released an official statement that cleared up some of the confusion, correcting some of the details that Obama elaborated on. First of all, it was not Obama’s uncle, but his great uncle that served during World War II. Secondly, Obama’s great uncle was part of the liberating army at Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.
These slip-ups are bad for Obama, especially because it shows his possible insensitivity to the Jewish community. To make a historical error that is also closely related to his personal history is never a very good thing. Everyone gets their facts mixed up sometimes, but when you’re giving a formal speech for a momentous occasion such as Memorial Day, you should probably get your story straight first.
At the same time, I think you need to cut him a little slack when you look at the bigger picture of this election. It’s not like Hillary made any claims about arriving in Bosnia under sniper fire, right? Surely McCain hasn’t done anything bad such as to suggest that the Iranian government is training Al Qaeda (insert sarcasm here)?
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