Fox News reports: President Obama’s scheduled visit to a former Nazi concentration camp is being done for “political reasons,” the president’s great-uncle — who helped liberate that camp — said in a recent interview.
Obama plans to visit Germany’s Buchenwald site as part of his multi-country tour, which begins this week.
Charles Payne, Obama’s great-uncle who helped liberate a sub-camp of Buchenwald during World War II, spoke frankly about the visit in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.
Asked if Obama would be traveling in his footsteps, Payne said: “I don’t buy that. … This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons.”
He said Obama also might be trying to improve his “standing” with Chancellor Angela Merkel, since “she gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”
Payne attracted some attention during the campaign last year when Obama mistakenly claimed he helped liberate Auschwitz — which was actually liberated by Soviet forces. Obama’s campaign corrected the mistake after Republicans seized on the error.
In his interview with Der Spiegel, Payne said Obama’s parents might have incorrectly told him the story of his great-uncle’s involvement in the liberation of Buchenwald, leading to the misunderstanding on the campaign trail. Payne said he never spoke to Obama about that experience beforehand.
“I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before,” Payne said. “Of course it came out immediately that he was wrong since there are enough people in America who know that Auschwitz is in the East and that the camp was liberated by the Red Army.”
He said Obama called him after the flap last year for more details about the camp’s liberation.
As for Obama’s upcoming visit, Payne said he’d nevertheless be happy to join his great-nephew.
“If he invites me on Air Force One, I’ll be there,” he said.
He said their relationship is “warm and friendly,” though he’s not part of Obama’s “inner circle.”
“He doesn’t call me up and ask what I have to say about world policy or anything. And I never offer my opinions on any of this,” Payne said.
Obama is visiting Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as France and Germany.
(Fox News)
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11 Responses
next obama is going to say he invented the internet
#1: Too late for that. Gore already claims to have created the internet.
So his uncle he has nothing to do with says its for political reasons. Yay. And in context, he just meant as opposed to personal family reasons.
WOW!! A politician doing something just for “political reasons”. Go figure!
I guess he is just like every other politician since the creation of politicians. None of them do anything except because it furthers their cause.
when was the last time a politition went for any other reason?
#3 I know i was making a reference to that
The best actors are politicians, and everything they do in public is for “political” reasons. I don’t trust politicians to be really sincere.
Thanks for the newsflash Uncle Charlie, I thought he did it because he loves the Jewish people. (lol)
Of course its political! He is burning the candle at both ends. Personally I wish he would stay away – from there and from the USA!!
How dare this self-serving and self-promoting liar use the backdrop of Buchenwald and the memories of the Kidoshem murdered there as a tool to fool the world into thinking he is not antisemitic. Moreover, to fool Jews into beleiving he is not antisemitic. How dare anyone, especially a jew, attempt to defend his using a concentration camp like that stage with phony greek columns that some Hollywood set director built for him after his nomination, to create his smoke and mirror image.
Of course it is political. It is not a family vacation or for personal research interests. That, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. But Obama is showing to be quite naive in making empathetic statements about Israel, now, visiting a concentration camp, yet twisting Isreal’s arm to do what it is not in Isreal’s best interest.
What is the story? No matter who is president, for decades, we send troops to every corner of the world to help others defend their sovereignty; except for Israel.
It is a crime that America pressures Israel to cede land Israel’s terrorists but America sends troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight Americas’ terrorists (ironically, both countries share the same terrorists).