WaPo Fact Checker: Shouldn't a Presidential Candidate, Like, Know Stuff?

Wed, May 28, 2008 at 8:09:36 am PDT

The Washington Post “Fact Checker” has been going very easy on Barack Obama, but today they’re actually asking the pertinent question about Obama’s “Auschwitz” tale: Where in the world is Auschwitz? - Fact Checker.

Granted, it is getting late in the campaign. The candidates are tired, and prone to making silly mistakes. Many Americans might have problems distinguishing Buchenwald and Ohrdruf from Auschwitz. But should we not expect more from a Harvard-educated presidential candidate? Is it too much to ask that an aspiring commander-in-chief knows (1) that Auschwitz (like many of the other Nazi death camps) is in Poland, and (2) that the eastern advance of the U.S. Army in World War II stopped on the river Elbe? Let me know what you think.

Yes, we should expect more from any presidential candidate, not just one educated at Harvard. I’ve written several times that I suspect Barack Obama of being almost completely ignorant of world history. All it would take to reveal the depths of this ignorance would be a few serious historical questions from a reporter who isn’t blinded by the messiah’s halo—but nobody seems to care.