Takes a lot of pressure for the Egomaniac-in-Chief to acknowledge he made a mistake.
Via The Hill:
President Obama has penned a letter of apology expressing “regret” over using the phrase “Polish death camps” in a ceremony earlier this week, which has drawn heavy criticism from Polish officials.
“In referring to ‘a Polish death camp’ rather than ‘a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland,’ I inadvertently used a phrase that has caused many Poles anguish over the years and that Poland has rightly campaigned to eliminate from public discourse around the world,” Obama wrote in a letter released by the Polish government. “I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth.”
Earlier this week, Polish officials expressed dismay over the president’s reference to “Polish death camps” during the posthumous awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, to Jan Karski, a Polish officer who provided the Allies with underground information about the ongoing Holocaust during the Second World War.
Update: Not so fast, wouldn’t want to mend fences with an ally, that’s reserved for enemies only.
(Politico) — President Barack Obama wrote a letter to the president of Poland after his remarks about death camps earlier this week set off something of a firestorm in that country.
But Obama did not exactly apologize for calling Nazi camps in Poland “Polish death camps,” according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest. Grilled by reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, however, Earnest declined to be more specific about what the letter actually did say.
Let’s go to the transcript:
Q Can you confirm that the President apologized in a letter to the Polish President about his use of the phrase “Polish death camps” and what was said in that letter?
MR. EARNEST: Well, as you know. . . I believe it was the President of Poland sent a letter to President Obama. I can confirm to you that President Obama did send a letter back. We typically are not in the habit of releasing correspondence between the President and other world leaders. But I can tell you that the way that you characterized the content of the letter in your question is not quite accurate.
Q So it wasn’t an apology?
MR. EARNEST: My understanding is that the letter was in line with other public statements that you’ve seen from this administration. But I don’t have any specific words from that letter to read to you.
Q — that it was his statement?
MR. EARNEST: Well, you’ve seen the things that we’ve said.