Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Barry Obamski stuffs up

True, he didn't really adopt this persona as part of his post-modern composite, but his Chicago turf is home to a million or so Polish Americans whom he just slapped in the face: President Obama Causes Outrage with Reference to ‘Polish Death Camp’

Don't words mean things, Mr. President. Gonna hide behind your teleprompter.

The Polish president, unlike the Russian (how's flexible workin for ya, Barack)...
The exchange, parts of it inaudible, was monitored by a White House pool of television journalists as well as Russian reporters listening live from their press center.
The United States and NATO have offered Russia a role in the project to create an anti-ballistic shield which includes participation by Romania, Poland, Turkey and Spain.
But Moscow says it fears the system could weaken Russia by gaining the capability to shoot down the nuclear missiles it relies on as a deterrent.
...was just in town for NATO:
  Komorowski, who made his first visit to Chicago for the NATO summit, also met briefly with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. At a meeting with the Tribune's editorial board, the president said the nearly 1 million Polish-Americans in Chicago — the largest population outside Warsaw — are an asset, and the city should take advantage. [snip]

Several of the young professionals said they wanted the president to know that they support Poland and value their Polish heritage as well as their American citizenship.
"We wanted to introduce the president to a perspective of what Polish-Americans look like today, not just immigrants but second and third generations that are interested in their community and giving back as well," said Agnes Ptasznik, 30, an assistant Illinois attorney general who attended the event. "Their parents and grandparents had to take hard jobs, and they invested in them, and it paid off."
You diss, you get dissed. Especially when you don't know much about history. You could not only refer to Nazi death camps but Russian massacres. Massacres being in the news lately. I imagine more than a few will remember in November:
Hmm. PA has 824,000 Polish-Americans. WI: 500,000. OH: 433,000. Even FL: 430,000
More at Memeorandum. [thanks for the link]

Update. Chicago media: ABC7  Obama reference to 'Polish death camp' faulted

Ed Driscoll, PJ Media references Pres. Ford's major gaffe, plus this:
  As Seth Mandel noted earlier this month at Commentary, “it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford).” Nice Obama to rectify that omission with his latest gaffe.
Video via the Jawa Report, with more, The Economist. A gaffe heard round the world:
Even in the middle of the night, the reaction in Warsaw was incendiary. Poland wants Mr Obama to apologise to prime minister Donald Tusk. America's most important ally in the ex-communist world already feels bruised by the administration's shilly-shallying on issues such as missile defence (back in 2009 Mr Obama's administration chose to announce its backtrack on that on September 17th, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. That was akin to giving America bad news on pacific security on Pearl Harbour day). America has not lifted visa requirements for Poles (who can die alongside Americans in Afghanistan but not visit them without humiliating bureaucratic hassles). And instead of providing the promised Patriot missile battery to protect Warsaw, it sent some toy rockets as part of a sales pitch. (That, at least, is how Poles see it).
More: myFOX Chicago: Obama reference to 'Polish death camp' faulted

More. Adrienne.

Nile Gardiner, The Telegraph:
President Obama has a long track record of insulting the Poles. In 2010 he chose to play golf on the day of the funeral of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the Polish First Lady, and 94 senior officials who perished in the Smolensk air disaster.
In Russia. Read on.

And how could I forget Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, Memorial Day story:
 There are many graves at St. Casimir Cemetery on the Far South Side of Chicago, and one belongs to Emil Wasilewski.

Emil's coffin is there, but Emil isn't in the ground.< The empty casket was buried after his family learned that Lt. Emil T. Wasilewski, a decorated bombardier, was killed in action in Germany in 1944.

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