Our president, who has deserved a reputation for
intelligence, articulateness, and even eloquence, today “misspoke” in referring
to a Nazi death camp as a “Polish death camp.” U.S. presidents, it seems,
misspeak on matters Polish with some frequency, occasioning no little outrage. Democrats
howled and celebrated Gerald Ford’s misstatement in 1976 during the presidential
debate that “I don’t believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by
the Soviet Union.” (Depends, of course, on which Poles you asked: the dominated
Poles, which you would not be allowed to ask, or the Poles dominating their
fellow Poles on behalf of the Soviet Union.) Ford lost to Carter in the
election, owing in part to that statement, and the abuse he took in the press
for seeming dangerously obtuse, naïve, or dysfunctionally ill-spoken. Carter, a
year later, went on to embarrass himself in front of his Polish hosts by
expressing his interest in, and affection for, the Polish people;
unfortunately, his translator rendered this warm feeling as “lust.” Carter lost
his next election, though his defeat probably had more to do with Ayatollah
Khomeini than with his translator. If Obama should happen to lose this fall,
however, we may have cause to speak of the curse of the Polish misstatement.
This particular gaffe—a sign of carelessness at least, of historical
ignorance on someone’s part, and gross insensitivity (this phrase occurred in
the context of a celebration of Polish heroism in resistance to Nazi atrocity)—will
redound more to Obama’s discredit than a similar error on the part of Mitt
Romney, who, like George W. Bush, has already established a reputation for
gaffe. Normally graceful and gaffeless, the president will seem slightly less
distinguishable from his Republican rival. But in the end, it won’t matter
much.
To my Polish friends, I want to apologize sincerely on
behalf of my government, which means well, but is often clumsy. What would be
really nice is if we made amends by getting rid of the visa requirement for
Poles traveling to the U.S. Heroic resistance to Nazis, Soviet Communism, and
al-Qaida should be more warmly embraced.
