The US just cant win sometimes

I see that honoring a Polish officer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom was obviously a mistake. Obama should have known that the Poles would over-analyze and misinterpret every word he said, as if they were studying Torah. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
 
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JihadJane said:
Does this mean that the CIA's secret prison in Poland should be called an al Qaeda torture camp?
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Maybe it should . . .

Obama should have known that the Poles would over-analyze and misinterpret every word he said
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I imagine just like in this thread they have a mixture of opinions on the subject.
 
Yeah, I suspect the recent BBC Panorama investigation into the shocking levels of Neo-Nazism, racism and anti-Semitism in Polish and Ukrainian football games may have given this "blunder" a bit of weight to the Poles, who are busy denying that they have a problem despite videotaped evidence of massive sections of the crowd chanting racist things and shouting "Sieg Heil!" whilst pulling Nazi salutes.
 
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sarge said:
I doubt the Polish goverment is as offended as their posturing makes them appear to be. It would be silly to get so offended at a very minor mistake - especially one uttered during a ceremony designed to honor a Pole.
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This exact sentence construction has been a big issue for decades so I think those who've expressed outrage are exactly as outraged as they appear to be. It was a major mistake. President Obama basically uttered the one phrase he should have avoided - especially during a ceremony designed to honor a Pole.
 
The Polish Foreign Minister called it an "outrageous blunder" and that the whole ceremony was "overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence."

Then the Polish PM said it was a result of "ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions" and that "The words uttered yesterday by the president of the United States Barack Obama concerning ‘Polish death camps’ touched all Poles".

Geez...a bit dramatic, aren't we?
 
tomwaits said:
The Polish Foreign Minister called it an "outrageous blunder" and that the whole ceremony was "overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence."

Then the Polish PM said it was a result of "ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions" and that "The words uttered yesterday by the president of the United States Barack Obama concerning ‘Polish death camps’ touched all Poles".

Geez...a bit dramatic, aren't we?
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The bad intentions part is obviously inaccurate but President Obama and his advisers should have been aware of the sensitivity of that phrase.
 
I had a racist Polish housemate who got stoned and then attacked a muslim family with a knife. He was arrested. Many of the Poles I know seem very insecure/sensitive about their cultural/ethnic/national identity - and who can blame them given the Nazi occupation. The Ukraine has a similarly termultuous recent past.

What they need is some kind of home grown potent economic movement so they can feel refreshed. As it is they're just dancing with the corpse of free market capitalism...and they're torn because of their communist leanings IMO.
 
Watergate...Iran contra...weapons of mass destruction...Polish death ca.., opps I mean Nazi death camps IN Poland. Yea out of all the political scandals I think this one can be forgiven and forgotten. ;)
 
MG1962 said:
http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/30/words-at-medal-ceremony-causes-trouble-with-poland/

Apparently at a speech - the President said "Polish death camps" Instead of Nazi death camps. The Polish Foreign Minister has already unleashed his displeasure..........Now it appears the Polish Prime Minister is going to make a public statement about this disgraceful outrage to the Polish people.

All in spite of a clear apology from the White House, explaining the President miss spoke, and the whole point of the speech was to honor a Pole's amazing courage during WW2.

Either it is a slow news day in Poland, or at least one country in this world needs to get over itself.

I wonder what the reaction might have been if the speech had been made by the President of Kiribati?
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Poland should lighten up and remember that Obama made a mistake about just a bit of trivia from history.

Must be a slow day in the US when reacting to Poland's reaction to a perceived slight is news.:rolleyes:



ETA: Of course, we are referring to heads of state as if they were the states themselves. "The USA can't do anything right!" and "Poland should lighten up about the Holocaust!" should really be "Obama can't do anything right!" and "The Polish government is angry about Obama's comment that the death camps were Polish."

Of course we all know that Obama "mis-spoke" as the irritating politicalese jargon has it. But you can't say that Obama did nothing wrong by "mis-speaking" when "mis-speaking" is, by definition doing something wrong.
 
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tomwaits said:
Then the Polish PM said it was a result of "ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions" and that "The words uttered yesterday by the president of the United States Barack Obama concerning ‘Polish death camps’ touched all Poles".
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Perhaps he had a flashback to Monica Lewinski, what with Presidents and touching all of the poles.


I'll get my coat ...
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Yeah, I suspect the recent BBC Panorama investigation into the shocking levels of Neo-Nazism, racism and anti-Semitism in Polish and Ukrainian football games may have given this "blunder" a bit of weight to the Poles, who are busy denying that they have a problem despite videotaped evidence of massive sections of the crowd chanting racist things and shouting "Sieg Heil!" whilst pulling Nazi salutes.
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I believe the official response to that was "they were pointing at supporters in the opposite stand" :rolleyes:
 
tomwaits said:
The Polish Foreign Minister called it an "outrageous blunder" and that the whole ceremony was "overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence."

Then the Polish PM said it was a result of "ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions" and that "The words uttered yesterday by the president of the United States Barack Obama concerning ‘Polish death camps’ touched all Poles".

Geez...a bit dramatic, aren't we?
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Did he say this at night?
 
Primus said:
I believe the official response to that was "they were pointing at supporters in the opposite stand" :rolleyes:
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Yes!! Are you doubting our pointing? The football field was in an upward slope, it was the weirdest thing! Although, The Nazis were only pointing as well. It's a lot of upward slopes in Central Europe, all right?

And don't touch all the Poles, we have a thing about that too.
 
angrysoba said:
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Of course we all know that Obama "mis-spoke" as the irritating politicalese jargon has it. But you can't say that Obama did nothing wrong by "mis-speaking" when "mis-speaking" is, by definition doing something wrong.
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But he tries his best, bless his heart.
 
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