Posted on 05/29/2012 5:53:29 PM PDT by kristinn
Poles and Polish-Americans expressed outraged Tuesday at President Obama’s reference earlier that day to “a Polish death camp” — as opposed to a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland.
“The White House will apologize for this outrageous error,” Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted. Sikorski said that Polish Prime Minister Donald “Tusk will make a statement in the morning. It’s a pity that this important ceremony was upstaged by ignorance and incompetence.”
The president had been trying to honor a famous Pole, awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter who sneaked behind enemy lines to bear witness at the atrocities being committed against Jews. President Obama referred to him being smuggled “into the Warsaw ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself.”
“A Polish death camp” — Sikorski also tonight tweeted a link to an Economist story noting that “few things annoy Poles more than being blamed for the crimes committed by the Nazi occupiers of their homeland.
SNIP
It seems likely that a more formal apology will need to be issued. Alex Storozynski, the President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, lauded the president earlier in the day for recognizing Karski, but now says “Karski would have cringed if he heard this…(SNIP)...President Obama’s remarks are already being called ‘scandalous’ by media outlets in Poland. Obama was seen reading this phrase off a teleprompter. The President must acknowledge his mistake and apologize for it. He must do it for Karski and the other Poles that risked their lives trying to stop the Holocaust.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Better than Lake Woebegon, I’ll bet!
I’d love to see how the libs who staff the US Embassy in Warsaw are explaining this away to their hosts.
LOL!
A few facts about Jan Karski:
1. He was author of the book “The Story of the Secret State.” Every FReeper should read that book. It’s a how-to book of how to defeat an occupying force.
2. Karski was a leader in the Polish underground during the Nazi occupation.
3. Karski gives detailed instructions on how to kill fascists in creative ways.
4. Karski was a patriot.
Don’t forget the recipe for a Trayvon cocktail.
Fat chance, this was DumBO's mistake, he only apologizes for America's "errors."
So much for this: On May 23, President Barack Obama told more than 1,000 jubilant, uniform-prepped-and-polished graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy that the world has a “new feeling about America.” He declared: “I see it everywhere I go, from London and Prague to Tokyo and Seoul to Rio and Jakarta. There’s a new confidence in our leadership.”
How will Carney twist himself into a pretzel to make this Bush’s fault?
Jan Karski is part of my very distant family. I would love to hear your story about your post:
I used to know Mr Karski’s mate in his WWII underground activities, professor (at the University of San Francisco) Jerzy Lerski, who like Karski parachuted into occupied Poland (more than once, I think) from England.
- Thank you -
Most people don’t know that Karski was a leader in the Polish underground in WW II. He fought against the Nazis, and he wrote the definitive book about hard-core resistance to tyrannical nazi occupation in “The Story of the Secret State.”
It is really sad that Mr Karky’s recognition is tainted by that stupid asshole, the teleprompter.
Lerski was a history professor at the University of San Francisco, when I met him. Before that he taught history in of all places Afghanistan, I believe. My ex helped him write his memoirs in English, while her Polish friend was helping him write them in Polish. He was, as I recall, not a very good writer, he had to list there and thank everyone he had run into. I don’t know if they were ever published. He was also very active in the Bay Area Polish community and once attempted a run at the U.S. Senate. He also wrote a book on Polish-Jewish history. Through him I met Jan Nowak, the ex (at the time) director on the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe, another war hero and accomplished Pole. These guys were really bigger than life. I remember attending a meeting with him in 1980 or 81, the height of the Solidarity movement. He was asked how as a historian he judged the period. He answered, and I’ll never forget it, that “this is like 1905!”. Was he right? Died in the early 1990s, after the fall of Communism.
I took a couple of classes from Professor Karski. He led a remarkable life.
Obama makes a giant flub which offends millions and it will be a 2 minute story on the news, if that.
Are you kidding? I’ve known dogs and cats who are smarter than Obama.
Probably "It was a fact checking error. When the President submitted his speech to the transcriber for the teleprompter, it mistakenly got changed from a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland to a Polish death camp. It was all the transcribers fault"
After all, this excuse worked for them last week.
I hope you are right!
If it's more than 90 they have to recalibrate the scale.
125-130 is way above his pay grade. Remember, 50% of people are 100 or lower. With his admitted heavy drug use I’d put him no higher than 105. He isn’t smart...he’s amorally shifty.
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