Why the Obama and McCain gaffes matter

Obama said his uncle helped to liberate prisoners at Auschwitz. The GOP pounced and the Obama spin machine said it was no biggie.

Both sides are wrong and both miss the point. They have to.

Obama apparently mixed up Buchenwald and Auschwitz. What difference does it make? It makes no difference for the points he was trying to make: something about his American roots and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

But he inadvertently made a different point: he’s not familiar with the rudimentary facts of World War II. Such as: the war started in Poland; Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe; Poland was therefore a likely place for placement of the largest death camp: Auschwitz; the Soviet Army pushed the Nazis out of Poland and out of what became (more or less) East Germany. Barack, that’s why Poland and East Germany were under Soviet domination until Lech Walesa and the Pope worked their magic. That’s why there was a reunification of Germany.

Barack, the American Army came into Germany from the west and stopped their advance in Germany where they met up with the Soviet Army. Either you didn’t know that or you didn’t know that Auschwitz is in Poland. Your historical ignorance is astounding for one who seeks to be not only commander in chief but head of a global military empire.

One of the most powerful arguments for a noninterventionist foreign policy is the lack of knowledge and competence of the various presidents and potential presidents to know how other countries should conduct themselves. Leave aside Obama’s competence to make decisions about foreign countries that will improve human life, it’s apparent that he lacks basic knowledge of recent modern history and basic military history.

McCain is no better. He claimed that Shiite Iran was training Sunni Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was at war with Shiites in Iraq.

So here we have two men who confidently issue policy prescriptions for far flung nations but who are in fact largely ignorant of the essential facts of modern history. And neither can tell the other: “Then mind your own business.”

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10:44 pm on May 28, 2008