Obama gaffe-orama (PM UPDATE: Obama clarifies remarks on family’s military service)

Even though most of us were enjoying the long three day holiday weekend, Obama’s gaffe machine didn’t take any days off. Gateway Pundit has video of a speech Barry O. made in New Mexico today where he said, among other things, the following:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Methinks the O-man has watched The Sixth Sense one too many times, eh?

Tom Maguire points out that his prepared remarks actually had the line stated correctly, so apparently the teleprompter didn’t keep the O-man from sliding off track a bit.

What the bigger deal was, more so than his faux pas, was the speech in general which, as Power Line’s John Hinderaker notes here, painted our troops as nothing more than helpless victims. Surprise surprise. What would Democrats do without “victims groups” to exploit?

The more interesting gaffe Obama made in his speech yesterday was when he talked about his family’s military service:

Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz. He said the family legend is that, upon returning from war, his uncle spent six months in an attic. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need Γ’β‚¬β€œ that’s why it’s so important.”

I suppose he’s trying to hit back at McCain’s swipe last week about Obama himself not serving in the military, during the heated debate over the GI bill.

In response to Obama’s claim, Purple Avenger at the Ace Of Spades blog says “wha”?:

Auschwitz of course is in Poland. It was liberated by the Red Army on Jan 27 1945. Poland, on most maps is usually placed to the east of Germany, although we may need to investigate the geography textbooks the Messiah used as a childÒ€¦

The Allies were wrapping up the battle of the bulge in late January of 1945 β€” the Rhine crossings were still well into the future when Auschwitz was liberated.

Hat tip to see-dubya, who adds:

Either Obama’s uncle served in the Red Army, or he’s spinning Clintonesque lies about Auschwitz to sell his government programs. Hey, it’s for a good causeÒ€¦but it’s not enough for him. It has to be personal. It has to be all about him.

Jimmie at The Sundries Shack wonders why Obama is not being treated like the Dan Quayle of the 2008 campaign season, and has come up with a term to describe an Obama gaffe:

Stuff like this has happened often enough that it deserves its own name. So, from now on, I’m going to call his verbal boners “Duh-bamas” in honor of the man who graces us with them so very, very often.

Heh. Perfect.

Related I: Barack Obama In Quotes: Version 2.0

Related II: Did Newsweek deliberately bury its Axelrod/Obama scoop?

Via Memeorandum.

PM Update – 6:19 PM: Barry O. corrects his goof:

In fact, campaign spokesman Bill Burton says, his great uncle was a member of the 89th Infantry Division that liberated the Ohrduf camp, part of Buchenwald and, according to the Holocaust Museum, the first concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops.

The soldier in question, Burton said, is Obama’s grandmother’s brother, who’s still alive.

UPDATE: “Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II Γ’β‚¬β€œ especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically,” Burton says.

More here.

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