Obama’s great uncle saluted for Buchenwald liberation
In a speech devoted mostly to a rough attack on John McCain, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry illustrated Barack Obama's patriotism by recognizing the new nominee's great uncle Charlie Payne, who participated in the liberation of a concentration camp during World War II [forward to 9:34 of the video].
"On a spring day in 1945, he helped liberate one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald," said Kerry in his speech. "Ladies and gentleman, Barack Obama's [great] uncle is here with us tonight. Please join me in saluting this American hero, Charlie Payne. Charlie, your nephew, Barack Obama, will end this politics of distortion and division. He will be a president who seeks not to perfect the lies of Swift boating, but to end them once and for all."
Payne rose from his seat, next to Michelle Obama, and acknowledged the ovation he recieved from the crowd. Payne first received attention in May, when Obama mistakenly said that he had helped to liberate Auschwitz – and was then accused of making up the story, since that camp was liberated by Soviet forces. The Obama campaign then clarified the name of the concentration camp.
UPDATE: At 2:04 ... Kerry hit the Bush-was-actually-bad-for-Israel talking point:
George Bush, with John McCain at his side, promised to spread freedom but delivered the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. They misread the threat and misled the country. Instead of freedom, it's Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and dictators everywhere that are on the march. North Korea has more bombs, and Iran is defiantly chasing one.
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1) Sitting in a prison camp doesn’t make you a leader. It makes you a captive and is not a qualification for office.
2) I’m pretty sure John Kerry didn’t refer to himself or his fellow vets as Ghengis Khan.
3) The point of introducing Charlie was to make clear Barack’s down-to-earth, deeply American. Going to Harvard does not make a person an elitist.
4)John McCain’s imprisonment was a tragedy, but it doesn’t do a thing to qualify him for president, and every time during the last six years, Barack Obama’s judgment has been better than McCain’s when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the current administration, despite denouncing some of Obama’s ideas originally, are now embracing them.
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Bill Levinson
08/27/08 11:44 PM
(1) Barack Obama’s great-uncle is not running for President.
(2) While John McCain was sitting in a Communist concentration camp that would make Abu Ghraib look like the Ritz Carlton, “Genghis John the Khan” Kerry was proclaiming himself and his fellow service members war criminals who burned villages, behaved like Genghis Khan, and so on, thus aiding the enemies of the United States. This is not what the Swift Boat people said about him, it is what he said about himself.