Gaffe 'n' hyenas

It looks as though Obama has a solid, daily record of putting his foot in it, and the rightwing (and a few centrist) bloggers aren't letting him get away with as much as the MSM (with one notable exception) seem eager to allow.

But today's dip in the Obameter comes as a single slip being, potentially, exaggerated into a pair. The slip? Stating "Family legend says my uncle helped liberate Auschwitz." Several different sources cited the same statement. Unfortunately, unless his uncle was in the Red Army (not exactly a philosophical stretch, as far as some folks are concerned), he could not have been at Auschwitz or any other Polish camp's liberation.

Granted, my own family has a couple of improbable legends – one having to do with the Dalton Gang, the other having to do with illegitimate offspring of a well-known poet – and there is no way, currently, to confirm or deny these legends, but we all rather assume they're so much talk talk talk for the amusement and/or edification of the chilluns.

But the bloggers (and their commenters) aren't just ripping Obama for his claim to ties to the wrong concentration camp, but also about the "uncle" part. His mother was an only child, and of a later generation. His father could not have served in the US military in WWII, for reasons of youth also, and of nationality. Therefore, they say, he could have had no uncle at the scene of liberation of any concentration camp at the end of the war. C'est impossible!

Well, I'm only a year or two older than ol' Barry. My parents were too young to serve. My mother is an only child. But I had an uncle or ten serve, in some capacity, in that war. They were the uncles of my mother and the uncles of my father. I don't, in ordinary conversational manner, refer to them as "my great-uncles." They're just uncles. Even though most of them were pretty great.

It's possible Barack H. Obama was using the same shorthand, about a great-uncle.

Or, he was making stuff up.


Update: It looks like he was "mixed up" about the location, and was talking about his great-uncle, after all. How would the MSM have handled this sort of "confusion" on the part of, say, John McCain or Dubya? Hmmmm.

Update 2: (Wednesday, 28 May, 11.42 hrs) according to this, Obama's great-uncle was in the US Navy. That would make it rather difficult for him to have done what is claimed. Did ol' Uncle Charlie make stuff up, or did li'l Barry? Surely, a sailor would have known better than to brag about catching a whale somebody else had found several hundred kilometers inland. But then, I've heard some of the stories my granddad's shipmates told.... O' course, I knew they were yankin' my gee-whiz, little-girl chain.

Now what does this say about Barack? And where is the Media coverage?