Obama’s Uncle Thinks D-Day Site Selection Is Political

During the campaign Barack Obama told a story about an uncle who served in WWII. The story Obama told was designed to show his family roots and that his family had people who served this country (no one I know of made any claim to the contrary. Obama, on the other hand…) . The story was wrong as Obama evidently did not discuss it with Uncle Charles Payne.

Now Payne says that Obama’s selection of Buchenwald for his D-Day speech was politically motivated:

“This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons,” Charles Payne told the German magazine Spiegel. “Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”

~snip~

Payne, 84, is no stranger to Americans: The Obama campaign used his WWII experiences last year to burnish the candidate’s all-American upbringing. But Obama made a gaffe when he said his great uncle liberated Auschwitz. In fact, Payne was part of the force that liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, in April 1945. Newsmax

Was there ever any doubt that what he does is always politically motivated?

Big Dog

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16 Responses to “Obama’s Uncle Thinks D-Day Site Selection Is Political”

  1. Darrel says:

    You don’t rise to getting the top political spot in the US with out doing, and being willing to do, a whole lot of things that are politically motivated.

    Oh, and bears poop in the woods.

  2. Blake says:

    Will we ever have anyone who doesn’t lie like a dog? This one is worse than most, because he’s insecure.
    What you are saying then, is that Barama is a whore who’s just in it for the money and power. Poor us.

    • Darrel says:

      Do you really think it appropriate to use anti-dog comparisons on this site? Careful.

      You like to call people liars, but are weak to “complete no show” when it comes to backing up your claims. Care to give it a try?

      I am saying Obama is a politician and thus does politically motivated things.

      Oh, and quite often, the sky is blue and, let me add, my cat has fleas.

      Any other profundities in stock?

      D.

      • Blake says:

        Let me see… BHo promised to publish all NON EMERGENCY legislation to his website for five days- did he EVER do this? I don’t think so. He promised to keep lobbyists out of his administration, yet what is Rham’s lobbyist brother doing there lobbying for a VAT? Heck, he made 17 exceptions in two weeks on this lie. He promised that small businesses would receive a 3,000 dollar tax credit for each additional full time employee hired- a lie.
        He lied about earmarks, plain and simple.
        He called presidential “signing statements” unconstitutional- but then he lied by attaching a signing statement of his own to a 410 billion dollar spending bill- what a hypocrite.
        Unfortunately, I could go on all day.

        • Darrel says:

          Oh you could go on all day, and you do, but what you don’t do is back your stuff up. When you try to do this, and get specific, that’s when you falter. The truth is in the details, and you avoid those.

          You did get one right that I know of. He did fail to publish some legislation on the web for five days. This is not a lie. Learn what the word means so maybe you can develop some credibility. He said he would do something, and failed to do it. This is a mistake, a failure to follow thorough (it happens to the best of us), but it’s not a lie.

          D.

        • Blake says:

          Darrel, when someone says they will do something, and then they fail to follow through, they lied about what they said.
          It is a Lie.
          Otherwise they would have done that.
          You’re so good at finding these things, go hunting. All of these things are true.

        • Darrel says:

          BLK: Darrel, when someone says they will do something, and then they fail to follow through, they lied about what they said. It is a Lie.>>

          DAR
          You’re wrong.

          lie
          “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.”

          BLK: Otherwise they would have done that.>>

          DAR
          Sometimes circ*mstances change, people forget, they make a mistake, they change their mind, etc. In a presidents case, which involves a lot of delegation, it often means someone else dropped the ball.

          What you need to show, to show a lie, is the persons intent when they made the statement. That’s really hard to do.

          I am not making an excuse for Obama’s failed website notice pledge. He dropped the ball, he failed to follow through. This doesn’t mean he “lied.” This failing on this issue is tiny and he got called on it and I could go find their response on this (read it somewhere) and see how they rectified this but really lack the interest. It’s not a biggie.

          I can give you a hundred, (and perhaps a thousand) examples of Bush doing this and typically on issues of much more importance than a website post. Yet almost without exception I don’t call these lies, because I can’t know the intent. I always assume someone is incompetent or stupid before I assume they are a liar.

          BLK: You’re so good at finding these things, go hunting.>>

          DAR
          I will. Let’s begin. Oh, did you mean Bush or Obama? Let’s start in alphabetical order, Bush before Obama.

          Someone has a nice compilation here:

          http://www.bushlies.net/liesatoz.html

          He gives hundreds of examples, and calls them lies, like you like to do. Are you going to be consistent and call them lies when Bush does this? Cause that’s gonna be a problem. He did it a lot, and on some really important trillion dollar issues.

          During the Bush daze I also subscribed to the “Daily Howler.” You can see the archives here:

          http://www.dailyhowler.com/

          Many hundreds of examples.

          D.

  3. a mother says:

    My cat does not have fleas, the sky is only blue when it is not 100% cloud cover or raining, bears also poop in public, trees make sounds when they fall even if no one is around to hear it, and politicians who inflate their relative’s military experiences lie. No doubt about any of that.
    At least McCain can say he actually served our country first-hand and faithfully. My grandfather was actually in Munich when the people in Dachau were released. Does that make my list of qualifications to be prez? Not to me because it wasn’t one of my personal experiences…

    • Darrel says:

      Dear “a mother”

      I choose my words carefully. I made the following three claims:

      a) “bears poop in the woods”
      b) “quite often, the sky is blue”
      c) “my cat has fleas”

      These three claims are perfectly true and quite mundane, like the claim I was comparing them to, that is, politicians do things that are “politically motivated.”

  4. Big Dog says:

    So it is safe to say Bush did not lie about WMD because no one has shown he intended to deceive people.

    • Darrel says:

      I think so. I think he really believed they were there, as did many others. If he/they really didn’t think they were there, surely they wouldn’t have been so dumb and invest so much capital in selling the war on this ultimately flawed rational. But I could be wrong.

      With his zeal to go war, there is solid evidence he cherry picked data and ignored stuff that went against his pet theories. This is what happens we people go by their “gut” rather than their head.

      He was also certain there weren’t going to be casualties. Note:

      ***
      “The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, “We’re not going to have any casualties.”

      Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as “the most self-assured man I’ve ever met in my life.”

      “You remember Mark Twain said, ‘He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.’ I mean he was just sitting there like, ‘I’m on top of the world,’ ” Robertson said on the CNN show, “Paula Zahn Now.”

      “And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.’ ”

      Robertson said the president then told him, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”

      http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/19/robertson.bush.iraq/index.html

      Incidentally, it’s an interesting little statistic that Clinton (two terms) didn’t send anyone into combat that didn’t come back (note how I worded this). The actions Bush has taken have caused the deaths of more Americans than Osama Bin Laden.

      D.
      —————–
      “I wasn’t happy when we found out there wasn’t weapons, and we’ve got an intelligence group together to figure out why.”
      –Second Presidential Debate, St. Louis, Missouri, Oct. 8, 2004

  5. Big Dog says:

    The celebration of D-Day should not be politically motivated.

  6. Big Dog says:

    The men and women of the military have joined knowing they could give their lives in battle. While any military death is tragic a large number of our dead are not combat. They were killed in accidents or by disease or injury.

    Clinton preferred to use the military to focus attention away from his domestic problems. Plus, his idea of sending troops into battle was to have them bomb from 15,000 feet or launch missiles. No way to fight a war.

    Still, a number of troops died while he was president. To say that the actions of Bush caused more deaths is disingenuous in that OBL killed non combatants. The members of our military who died did so doing their jobs.

    Given that we are fighting a war on multiple fronts the number of casualties is low. Much lower combat death rate than any other war we have fought with the exception of the first Gulf War and the Spanish American war. Not many more troops died under Bush than under Clinton and we are fighting real wars rather than the made up stuff Clinton did to divert attention.

    But liberals are responsible for more death via abortion than any other entity.

    It was the Democrats who got us into most every major war in the last century. They caused a lot of deaths.

    • Darrel says:

      BIGD: “a large number of our dead are not combat.”>>

      DAR
      The vast majority are. Note:

      “As of February 24, 2009 hostile-fire deaths accounted for 3,662 of the 4,568 total coalition military deaths.”

      –http://icasualties.org/Iraq/HostileNonHostile.aspx

      Hey, when Bush said:

      “If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road. I’m going
      to prevent that.” –Bush v Gore debate, October 3, 2000

      Was he “lying?” Blake?

      BIGD: “bomb from 15,000 feet or launch missiles. No way to fight a war.>>

      DAR
      The objective was accomplished and the combat fatalities on our team were: Zero.

      Since when is that “no way to fight a war?” It seems to me that would be exactly the way to fight a war.

      BIGD: “a number of troops died while he [Clinton] was president.”>>

      DAR
      If you would like to debunk may statement, give it a try. Making an assertion (and one different than my claim) doesn’t accomplish this.

      BIGD: To say that the actions of Bush caused more deaths is disingenuous in that OBL killed non combatants.>>

      DAR
      No, to say the actions of Bush caused more deaths than OBL, is exactly accurate. And Bush’s actions have killed even a lot more non combatants. Hundreds of thousands at least (and five million orphans).

      BIGD: “Not many more troops died under Bush than under Clinton…”>>

      DAR
      You couldn’t be more wrong. Perhaps you didn’t read my claim carefully. Again:

      “Clinton (two terms) didn’t send anyone into combat that didn’t come back…”

      That means, zero, versus Bush’s thousands of combat fatalities.

      I am not including training accidents, wars started by previous presidents and sneak terrorist attacks. Combat fatalities under Clinton = zero. It’s just an interesting little stat. Kind of amazing really. Try to debunk it if you can.

      BIGD: “It was the Democrats who got us into most every major war in the last century.”>>

      DAR
      Actually, someone posted that on GM’s site and I hadn’t heard it before. So I posted it on our freethinker forum along with some evidence I found trying to support your claim.

      My good friend Doug, ripped it to SHREDS. It’s rubbish. See his careful debunk here:

      “Which Party started the most wars: Demo or Repub?”

      http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5831#p18593

      His conclusion?

      ****
      Final Score for 20th and 21st centuries: Democrats: 2
      Republicans: 6

      And unlike you, he gives evidence, and reasons!

      D.

      • Big Dog says:

        Well now, you certainly didn’t ask the right question. I said that Democrats have gotten us into more wars, not started them but you asked your group of sycophants who started more. Then they were able to exclude many wars that we got in but did not start. Incidentally, you admitted as much after they had ignored the ones we got into.

        They also named items that are not technically wars. The History channel names 5 wars of the 20th century (which was also a disqualifier you ignored). The Democrats got us into 4 of them and the Republicans into 1.

        Now, your folks threw in Panama and Grenada event hough they were not wars. Military action yes, wars no. If you want to include them then we need to include the Bay of Pigs which was a coup Kennedy backed and then backed out of leaving people to die. We would also need to count the Iran hostage crisis and the failed rescue attempt, both of which took place under Carter.

        Of the 5 wars defined by the History Channel, Democrats lead the way in getting us involved.

        • Darrel says:

          You make assertions, but you don’t back them up. And now you move the goal posts to “lead the way” to “getting us involved,” whatever that means.

          The fellow who wrote that response is Doug, not me. You will be pleased to know that US military history is not a specialty of mine. Considering the slipperiness of what is a war v. “military action” and even the fogginess of when the beginning of a war actually begins, there isn’t going to be a clear answer on this. And certainly your conclusion can’t be shown to follow.

          Isn’t it an axiom that republicans like war more than democrats and the left likes peace more? Do republicans go to peace rallies? No, the go to pro war rallies. And the right has almost all, if not all, of the chicken hawks. Bizarre.

          D.