Heil Hit-Slur!

The ConWeb's outrage over that Bush-Hitler ad obscures the fact that it has quite a history of comparing Democrats to Nazis.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 1/13/2004
Updated 1/18/2004

The ConWeb dutifully did what was expected in reporting the Republican National Committee's outrage that a 30-second video submitted as part of a contest and posted on the site of the contest's sponsor, MoveOn.org, showed President Bush morphing into Adolf Hitler.

"This is the worst and most vile form of political hate speech," said RNC chairman Ed Gillespie at WorldNetDaily. Gillespie calls it a "despicable tactic" at CNSNews.com. Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, calls it "vile and outrageous" at NewsMax.

None of those stories, by the way, actually quotes anyone from MoveOn responding to the criticism. The NewsMax story takes an slightly different tack in attacking Democrats.com, which apparently had a post praising the ad submission, as run by a bunch of Clinton cronies, and another story by Father Michael O'Reilly, a Catholic priest who provides regular commentaries, tries to twist MoveOn's assertion that it didn't sponsor the Bush-Hitler as a lie since the ad contains a "sponsored by MoveOn.org" tag at the end (never mind that, again, it was submitted as part of a contest).

CNS did post another story a day after its first one in which someone whose work MoveOn has promoted in the past criticized the Bush-Hitler ad as well as denying any affiliation with the group. This story finally gets around to talking to someone from MoveOn, spokesperson Jessica Smith, who tells CNS that "I don't know what kind of story you're trying to write, but I just think that you're putting people in awkward situations. And it's hard for us to field phone calls from you." CNS then proves Smith correct two days later with a story in which MoveOn officials state their side of things -- which Gillespie is then permitted to rebut.

The ConWeb columnists have had a field day with the issue, too -- cue Brent Bozell, who calls the folks at MoveOn "radical haters" in a Jan. 7 column and laments: "Comparing an American President to the fiendish fascist architect of death camps used to be seen as beyond the pale ... Comparing American political figures or policies to Nazi Germany – unless it’s the actions of the American Nazi Party or their ilk – is the first mark of a reckless kook." As if to prove Bozell correct (even though he wasn't talking about conservatives), we have Rabbi Daniel Lapin attempting a "Screwtape Letters" homage Jan. 10 at both NewsMax and WorldNetDaily (footnoted, no less) by having Hitler "write" to a former crony that "We are winning, Julius, thanks to those American Democrats, we are winning." (Lapin also tells a lie (not footnoted) in the NewsMax version and a version at Lapin's Web site that MoveOn "plans to produce" the ad; interestingly, the WND version changes it to "providing a platform for potential television advertising," yet keeps the word "depraved" to describe it. "Providing a platform" is an act of depravity?) We also have Craige McMillan writing in a Jan. 8 WorldNetDaily column: "And to those who disagree with (the left's) vision, they offer the alternative favored by dictators and despots the world over: the fiery ovens of Auschwitz and Treblinka, or the silent, frozen boxcars of Siberia."

Why, with all this hullabaloo you'd think that conservatives would never sink so low as to compare Democrats with Nazis. You'd, of course, be wrong.

Let's start off with a couple familiar names that you'd expect to do that sort of thing, Michael Savage and Norman Liebmann:

"I once wrote that 'Vac’m in the Vulva' Barbara Boxer was the reincarnation of Adolf Mengele in drag, the Nazi Angel of Death. I meant it. ... The spirit of Mengele knows well to start at the weakest point and work from there – with Clinton, Singer, Boxer or any other willing host."

"I refuse to whistle Dixie while my country is being overrun by psycho-lib Commu-Nazi organizations like the ACLU who defend child molesters and terrorists, who trash our traditions and who silence religious speech while wrapping themselves in the flag to justify child pornography – virtual or otherwise."

"The first sign of Bill Clinton's totalitarian inclinations became manifest during puberty when he saw a film of Adolph Hitler haranguing a Nuremberg rally, and got an erection. By age 12 Bubba was a common sight on the street corners of Little Rock, playing Deutchland Uber Alles on his ocarina. ... Like Hitler, Clinton will keep "up-ing the ante" of his demands on the American people's freedom until they have no choice but to resist - and then he will move in with armed and lunatic force."

"Clinton has rallied to his cause - Boxer, Feinstein, Schumer, Lieberman, Waxman, Wexler, and others whose psychological profile fit those Jewish trustees at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. ... Clinton has genius for using the lemming instinct rampant in some Jews to his purpose. Further, he has a genius for surrounding himself with people who have a compelling psychological need to submit. Like Hitler, Clinton knows how to manipulate feelings of boredom, inadequacy and the more monstrous impulses of the libido. ...

"In Germany, in 1933, bleeding hearts like Boxer and Feinstein were forming Fair Play for Hitler committees. The Hitler/Clinton metaphor is an easy one. Had they been around in the forties, when six million Jews were being forced to inhale Zyklon B, "Babs" and "Di Di" would be doing overnights at Berchtesgaden."

"On the interview circuit, it seems apparent Woodward and Bernstein were out to undo Nixon, whose sins were trifling compared to the Arkansas Nazi, Bill Clinton."

"The media has normalized, even "casualized", partial-birth abortion (Clinton's attempt to revive Nazi eugenics.) Devoted as the Clintons are to abortion, it is a pity Bubba's mother did not avail herself of it."

"Even more poignantly, we did not find a media mention that a small town in Germany recently held a mock trial of their former Führer, Adolph Hitler, in which they found him guilty of murder, genocide, and crimes against humanity. They acquitted Hitler of raping Juanita Broaddrick, and joined the rest of the world in the conclusion that the real rapist is still at large."

"The difference between Clinton's fascists and Hitler's fascists is Clinton's have no paradigm. The trickiest to identify are the fascists in Arkansas, but only because the people there found the Nazi salute too intricate a maneuver for them to master."

If Boxer and Feinstein are determined to use the loathsome term "confiscation" they should be prepared to pay the surviving Hitler family members a royalty. ... At the Democratic National Convention, Clinton may reasonably expect Boxer to deliver from the great state of Auschwitz, six million proxy electoral votes for his third term. Clinton will no more yield power willingly than Hitler did.

"Incidentally, neo-Nazi students at Heidelberg University have elected Hillary Clinton their Homecoming Queen for Kristalnacht."

"Does anyone see the diabolical digit of destiny in the fact that Clinton has the same attitude about smoking as Adolph Hitler?"

"(ABC's Sam) Donaldson has a hairline that Hitler tried to effect, but never quite managed to achieve."

Now, let's move on to lesser ConWeb lights, in that they managed to limit their liberal-Nazi comparisons to a single article:

"Clinton was invoking the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft, in which the relatives of those who opposed Hitler were punished. This vengeful notion holds that the accused person's family is tainted with 'blood guilt.'"

"Tranzi stands for Transnational Progressive ... They propose abolishing nations and replacing them with a single, global government. ... The word 'Tranzi' nicely evokes the ideology it represents. It has a nasty, sneaky sound, like Commie or Nazi."

"There have been dozens of examples of the Clinton administration using Nazi-style police tactics against government whistleblowers."

"There is a Web site mistakenly called democrats.com (it should be .con) - run by a gaggle of Marxist thugs who could have taught Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels a thing or two about political slander."

"The political adviser responsible for making Al Gore a two-term vice president (Dick Morris) said Thursday night the veep is in a state of denial about his impending White House loss, comparing him to "Hitler in the bunker." Then he quickly withdrew the analogy to the World War II dictator."

"The Third Way between socialism and capitalism was the original brainchild of Adolph Hitler."

"The only difference between a Communist police state and a Nazi police state is which boot -- right or left -- is on your neck. The Clinton compromise is both boots on your neck."

Think of the Soviets in Afghanistan or the Nazis in Amsterdam. That's what the U.S. -- the government that claims to act on all our behalf -- is doing to these people, though no one in Yugoslavia ever threatened an American citizen.

"In the first and largest essay in the booklet, entitled, 'Hillary Clinton and 'The Third Way,' Horowitz dismisses her use of Third Way ideology as a course of centrist moderation, but rather as a cover for her commitment to socialist ideals and political action. He notes the use of this political tactic by the Nazis in their rise to power during the 1930s, the Trotskyists to distinguish themselves from Stalinists, and the New Leftists of the 1960s to distance themselves from the horrors of the Soviet gulags."

"Monica Lewinsky is not nearly as interesting as Hitler's mistress Eva Braun, the school teacher's daughter who died in a bunker with her Fuhrer boyfriend after she took cyanide and he, maybe, shot himself."

"There are those who say that Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister, was the preeminent master of deception in the 20th century. I say President Bill Clinton, along with Attorney General Janet Reno and most of Clinton's cabinet, rank right up there with this 'master of deception.'"

"Perhaps the Democratic Party should consider a new battle cry should their most famous face decide to enter the presidential race in 2004. Sieg Hillary!"

"Recently, one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, the New York Post, took a poll to identify the 25 "Most Evil People" of the millennium. ... Adolf Hitler barely edged out Bill Clinton for first place, and Josef Stalin came in third. ... The injustice is not that Bill Clinton was voted in as one of the top, world-class, evil men in the last thousand years. The injustice is that, with a level playing field, he might have come in first."

"(A recent Al Gore speech) was less a political speech than a blueprint for Nazi America."

"Additionally, such (pro-gun) legislation will help to prevent socialists like Al Gore from ever being able to use our military and police illegally against U.S. citizens -- just as Hitler did against his own citizens many years ago.

"Bovard starts his book with AmeriCorps, Clinton's version of Hitler's old notion of putting "volunteer" youth in the service of the state."

"Clinton went on to say, 'And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom.' Bullfeathers! Who are these 'lot of people'? Why are freedom and liberty anathema? He said, 'When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.' Yeah, just like Hitler did, just like Stalin did. ..."

Al Gore – the darling of the media elite – is a professed globalist. The Clinton-Gore administration was chock full of globalists. ... Quoth the globalists: 'One Folk! One Reich! One Dictatorship by the Proletariat!" (Wait a minute. Maybe that was Hitler? Or was it Lenin?)

"We have lost faith in the FBI and in the secrecy of the files they keep on individuals. We now know that they will remain secret unless one happens to cross paths with Mr. Clinton. We now have an idea of how it felt to be ruled by Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler."

"If you think Hitler was a lunatic, than you had better give some thought to Gore's views."

"Budweiser is marketing heavily to homosexuals when we know that homosexuals have a higher than average alcoholism problem. If they're going to attend an 's and m' rally, why don't they sponsor a neo-Nazi rally since there are consumers out there they should be reaching."

And we haven't even gotten around to the fact that while said Bush-Hitler hullabaloo was going on, the New York Post ran a column by Ralph Peters comparing Howard Dean supporters to Hitler's Brownshirts and Dean himself to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, which the ConWeb has yet to mention.

The ConWeb's outrage has been highly focused on a single incident that just happens to involve its political enemies. Don't expect it to be so critical of its own content, if only because it would expose them, to quote Brent Bozell, as the reckless kooks that they are.