Redstate

By spainishirish Posted in History — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

It is one thing to fabricate a family member's war experiences.

It is quite another to exploit the Holocaust, and particularly the hell that was Auschwitz, for political purposes.

Barack Obama has done both.

As reported by the Associated Press, Sen. Obama said on Memorial Day:

"And the story in our family was is that when he came home, he (Obama's uncle) just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," he said.

Obama made the false claim that his relative liberated Auschwitz and later suffered depression to score points on two fronts. The first was to bolster the freshman senator's support of mental health treatment for veterans. That particular exploitation of the sorrow of others is sad enough. Yet such is not uncommon in the world of Democratic politics where truth is relative whenever the perceived greater good can be served.

I strongly suspect, though, that Obama made the false claim for a more unseemly and even sinister reason.

Sen. Obama does not fare as well as a Democrat normally would expect among Jewish voters. There are many reasons, and Obama's associations are chief among them. President Bush received about 25 percent of the votes Jewish Americans cast, and that was considered a good showing. Polls indicate that Sen. John McCain would receive at least 40 percent of that demographic if the election were held today.

So what did Obama do? He imbedded his "uncle" with the Red Army to liberate what has become the symbol of Nazi evil. This is an astonishingly cheap and cynical ploy to reclaim votes, and Obama crossed a line here that few dare acknowledge.

Partisan hack Chris Matthews said yesterday that the "gaffe" should cause people to visit the Holocaust Museum in the District of Columbia. If Matthews had been an honest observer, he would have finished the sentence with "and question the integrity and ethics of Sen. Barack Obama."