COMMENTARY: President Obama Must Apologize Quickly for Insulting Poland

President Barack Obama angered millions of Poles this week by referring to a World War II Nazi death camp in Poland as "a Polish death camp."

Obama's insult of Poles brings back memories of 1969, when then-Vice President Spiro Agnew used the derogatory term "Polacks" when he was referring to Poles.

Obama made the remark on May 29, 2012 during a ceremony honoring the late Polish resistance hero Jan Karski with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

A furious Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has demanded an explanation and an apology from Obama for his insulting remark, and went so far as to call it "a distortion of history."

We agree with Prime Minister Tusk that Obama owes Poland and Poles an apology for his stigmatic comment against Poland.

The fact is that Poland did not operate any Jewish death camps during World War II. Rather, the death camps -- set up in Poland to murder millions of Jews -- were totally controlled by German Nazi troops who had conquered Poland at the beginning of the Second World War.

Although it may have become a tradition in the United States to use Poles as a scapegoat with jokes relating to  ignorance, this Obama epithet must not be viewed as a "Polish joke."

Indeed, it is a major distortion of history and the role of Poland in World War II -- a distortion for which President Obama must apologize -- and the sooner he apologizes for this insulting remark, the better.