Posted on 06/01/2009 5:00:02 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
President Obama's scheduled visit to a former Nazi concentration camp is being done for "political reasons," the president's great-uncle -- who helped liberate that camp -- said in a recent interview.
Obama plans to visit Germany's Buchenwald site as part of his multi-country tour, which begins this week.
Charles Payne, Obama's great-uncle who helped liberate a sub-camp of Buchenwald during World War II, spoke frankly about the visit in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
Asked if Obama would be traveling in his footsteps, Payne said: "I don't buy that. ... This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons."
He said Obama also might be trying to improve his "standing" with Chancellor Angela Merkel, since "she gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Note that Fox News says this, not Payne. If you read his words carefully, he says absolutely nothing about liberating ANY camp or even being in the army. Also, he says that Obama called him after being questioned about the Buchenwald story, but he does not say what he told Obama.
It seems to me that this article indirectly confirms rather than contradicts the theory that, in fact, Payne didn't liberate ANY camp, since he was in the Navy, not the Army.
Fox may have left part of the interview on the cutting room floor, but it's curious that in this version Payne manages to talk around the subject without ever confirming Obama's revised story. And I doubt that Fox would have cut any such remarks, since that was the whole point of this story.
Hmmm.
One small step for the messiah, one giant leap for his poll numbers.....
Hey, he's just getting some decorating ideas for his future FEMA camps. I'm sure that he wants those right-wing extremists to finish their last few days with a certain level of "luxury".
Gathering ideas
Is there any more room under the bus? There can't be.
Payne said: "I don't buy that. ... This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons." He said Obama also might be trying to improve his "standing" with Chancellor Angela Merkel, since "she gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards."I wonder if he was a Major?
Pinging on the run here.
Oops. I take back what I posted earlier. The Fox interview is a summary of a fuller, earlier interview with Der Spiegel:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,626703,00.html
Here’s the relevant passage in Der Spiegel:
Payne: He wanted to know where this camp was that I had helped liberate. I told him that it was Ohrdruf and that it was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I described a little bit of what I had seen.
SPIEGEL: You were barely an adult as a soldier back then — how did you wind up at such a place?
Payne: Everybody who was able-bodied was drafted. I went down right at the time I graduated and told the lady that ran the Selective Service office. I said, “I’m ready to go,” and she said: “Don’t you worry about it, honey. You’re on the list.” Since I had been colorblind since birth, I was first turned down by the Air Force, then by the Navy and the Marines. Only the Army didn’t care and put me into the infantry.
So, this still doesn’t prove that Payne isn’t bending the truth for Obama, but it doesn’t sound too likely, frankly.
Does he NOT do anything for political reasons???
Pickin up pointers for the campuses?
Payne said, “This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons.”
Lol, Obama ain’t gonna like that. No Lincoln bedroom sleepover for you Mr. Payne!
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LOL!
Family Plot
From the same Der Spiegel article. Note the irony in Payne’s statement.
SPIEGEL: What do you think about the Germans today?
Payne: I am puzzled by intelligent people who stand by and allow their country to be taken over and run by extreme radical types. I’m still somewhat puzzled by that. And I am fully aware that it could happen and has almost happened in this country. You know, I lived through the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when it was getting dangerously close to that sort of thing.
Payne also says he admires Obama. He himself is a long time Dem.
From the same Der Spiegel article. Note the irony in Payne’s statement.
“SPIEGEL: What do you think about the Germans today?
Payne: I am puzzled by intelligent people who stand by and allow their country to be taken over and run by extreme radical types. I’m still somewhat puzzled by that. And I am fully aware that it could happen and has almost happened in this country. You know, I lived through the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when it was getting dangerously close to that sort of thing.”
Sorry. Forgot to put the excerpt in quotes.
Good point! OH, how to get the ball rolling?
How often have you heard one of his family members say something like that about him? Wonder what happened to his illegal aunt? Probably living a life of ease somewhere in the good ol’ USA.
He’s managed to shut most of them up.
Great. He was afraid of McCarthy exposing Commies in the government, but now cheers on his own grandnephew currently creating a new era of tyranny and economic oppression.
Last I heard of the Aunt, she appeared in a photo with several high price lawyers, and a judge gave her a one-year extension on her stay in the US.
That’s a dead issue. Nobody is going to think badly of Obama for pulling strings for his poor old aunt.
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Sounds like Great-Unc likes Obama style fascism too
[Nobody is going to think badly of Obama for pulling strings for his poor old aunt.]
I agree. On the other hand, he has a brother living in a shack in Kenya and we aren’t aware of him helping him.
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