Alt. Title: WaPo "Fact Checker" Should Give Self 3 Pinocchios or Where in the World is Buchenwald?
Can you be a "fact checker" when you cannot get your own facts right? Can you take someone to task for their knowledge of history and geography when yours is equally bad? These are questions that should be asked of the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" Michael Dobbs after his glib and insensitive hit piece on Obama where he himself gets his own geographical facts wrong.
Many of you have probably already seen this faux controversy worked up in the news about Obama confusing Auschwitz with Buchenwald when discussing his great uncle's military service and role in liberating the concentration camps on Memorial Day. Dobbs, weighed in on this faux controversy and originally gave Obama 4 Pinnochio's. That's right, he ranked it as high as Tuzla.
I find the faux outrage from Republicans funny because of course Ronald Reagan said he himself he was at Buchenwald when he was in the Army Signal Corps during the war, but he spent the entire wartime in Hollywood making movies. But he did play a soldier freeing Jews in a concentration camp in a movie.
After the Obama campaign released their statementabout how in fact his great uncle did in fact liberate Jews at the concentration camp of Buchenwald and not Auschwitz, confirming that the story was factually true, but just showing that he confused the two camps, Dobbs walked back his 4 Pinnochios to 3. How generous of him.
In so doing however, Dobbs could not resist taking a number of digs and cheap shots at Obama and then makes a massive factual blunder of his own.
The column itself had the glib headline: Where in the world is Auschwitz?
The basis for Michael Dobbs award of 3 Pinnochios in his "Fact Checker" column was thus.
Before hearing from the Obama campaign, I gave the candidate four Pinocchios for this howler. I am subtracting one Pinocchio in view of the explanation that Obama confused the two concentration camps and that the underlying story was accurate. Three Pinocchios for "significant factual errors." (emphasis added)
"Significant factual errors" eh? Well what if the "fact checker" makes similar errors of geography and history and "significant factual errors" himself? How many Pinnochios would that person deserve? And what if that same "fact checker" used their column to take cheap shots at the presumptive Democratic nominee?
He starts off his assault with this gem:
Unfortunately, the story shows that the presumptive Democratic nominee has a poor grasp of European history and geography.
Then he proceeds to mock Obama's education:
But should we not expect more from a Harvard-educated presidential candidate?
But he gets himself into trouble here:
the camp in question was not Auschwitz, but Ohrdruf, which was part of the Buchenwald camp system in Lower Saxony. (emphasis added)
So let's fact check this claim shall we? Or as Michaell Dobbs would put it: Where in the World is Buchenwald?
Now, if you check Wikipedia, it will tell you that Buchenwald was near Weimar in the region of Thuringia, not Lower Saxony. That took me all of 5 seconds to "fact check" that.
But how far off is Dobbs? Well, Weimar is rather deep in Thuringia and actually 100 km from the eastern border of Lower Saxony, not even close. Seriously, who needs the lessons in European geography and history now?
And just to illustrate, here is a map that shows you where Weimar is (in Thuringia) and it's relationship to Lower Saxony.
So I am left with the following observation: Unfortunately, the "fact check" shows that the Washinton Post's "fact checker" has a poor grasp of European history and geography.
And I am left with the following question: But should we not expect more from a self-proclaimed "fact checker" for a major newspaper?
What a friggin' joke. We are at the stage of this campaign now where the "fact checker" needs a fact checker. Since he loved to pile on with his crap about Obama's Harvard education and knowledge of georgraphy, the only thing I can guess is that he went to Harvard too. What a tool.
Washington Post "Fact Checker" gets 3 Pinnochios! (At Least)
Update: Lava20 in comments points out that the full name of Auschwitz is Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is not very dissimilar to Buchenwald. Birkenau/Buchenwald, it's is very close and obvious to see how it could be conflated.
Update2: Anarchofascist in comments makes the excellent point, "In excoriating Obama for confusing Auschwitz for Buchenwald, he confused Buchenwald for Bergen-Belsen." Bergen-Belsen was in Lower Saxony. Also point out that Buchenwald is the name of a forest in Lower Saxony as well (I smell a metaphor for Dobbs article). That makes him an even bigger ass.
Update3: Thanks to Old Man McCain.com in the comments, here is a good takedown of Dobbs by Jake Tapper:
No matter where you stand, I guess I just don't particularly care to see Concentration Camp survivors on the same page as cartoon Pinnochios, as whoever does graphics for the Washington Post's great fact-checker Michael Dobbs has done HERE.
And do we really need the headline "Where In the World Is Auschwitz?" This isn't a joke.
I am certainly part of the media world that pounces on politicians when they screw-up. As such, I'm often guilty as charged when it comes to not seeing the forest for the trees. In this instance, the forest is the deliberate extermination of 12 million people. And the sacrifices of the brave Americans who risked and gave their lives to save those people victimized by Nazi barbarism. Not to mention our fighting men and women through the generations who have had to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a conversation about which prompted Obama to mention his great uncle.
Obama deserved to be called out for his mistake. But it's also worth noting that despite all the talk about Obama's problems with the Jewish community, he's never mentioned before that his great uncle helped liberate a concentration camp until it came up in North Las Vegas in a conversation about PTSD.