Saturday, May 22, 2010

It's Time To Stop Pushing The "Hitler" Button

Newt Gingrich is not the first person who has compared a political opponent (in this case, President Obama) to Hitler (or Stalin, for that matter).  But it's time to declare a moratorium on this rotten, putrid, pseudo-substitute for meaningful political discourse, once and for all.

Let's boil it down to basics:  when President Obama systematically kills 10 million people, including 6 million Jews, you can compare him to Hitler.  If he launches a program to accomplish this, you can compare him to Hitler.  But to do so in the absence of such a horror, you not only diminish the evil of both Hitler and Stalin, you expose yourself as both a liar and a cheat, a person who manipulates words to distort reality for self-serving purposes (in this case, promoting his latest book and his own Presidential prospects).  Gingrich, of course, has made a career out of this:  he once went so far as to provide Republican candidates for office with a list of negative adjectives (e.g., "sick," "weird," and so on) that they could use against their opponents.  I'm not sure which aspect of this is worse:  the fact that Gingrich thought of this as a smart idea, or the the fact that he doubted the ability of his own party's candidates to come up with insults.

Truthfully, I'd be happy to have Gingrich run against Obama.  He's an unbelievably juicy target, a gift to the left that just keeps on giving.  How would you campaign against him? Where would you start?  His messy personal life?  His failed Speakership?  His hypocritical opposition to "big government," in the face of the fact that he has benefited from public spending his entire life?

No, actually, you start with his willingness to push the Hitler button.  The next time he does it, the reporter who is covering him should slam him with questions.  And if he or she doesn't, they should be fired.  As for Newt, contrary to his vibrant fantasies, the American people aren't going to be hiring him anytime soon.

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