Dispatch #12

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.