Thursday, February 14, 2008

Obama equals Hitler




-- by Dave

Almost like clockwork, no sooner do liberals start raising eyebrows about the "cult of Obama" than right-wing talkers pick up that ball and run with it:
Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan took a call from a listener who stated that when listening to Barack Obama speak, "it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell." Sullivan then played a "side-by-side comparison" of a Hitler speech and an Obama speech. Sullivan mimicked the crowd during both speeches, yelling, "Yay! Yay!" When a later caller complained that Sullivan was "denigrating" Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn't play it again, then begged: "Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won't do it again. ... Until the next time."

Of course, this really isn't the first time we've heard Obama compared to Hitler. You may recall that just a few weeks ago, a right-wing racial nutcase in Australia named John Ray, while defending Jonah Goldberg against yours truly, observed the following:
In fact, with his constant inspirational calls for national unity, Obama is eerily reminiscent of the Fascists. If he spoke German he might well be inclined to adopt as his slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer -- as Hitler did ("One nation, one government, one leader"). After all, right to the end most Germans saw Hitler as a warm and kindly father-figure. And if the ruthless power-seeker that is Hillary reminds you of Joe Stalin, don't blame me!

And of course, Goldberg linked approvingly to this post. Yes, the fellow who penned an entire book which, besides being turgid, unreadable, ahistorical and otherwise a complete fraud, was really nothing more than an extended whine that those mean liberals call conservatives fascists.

Normally, one would think that an outrageous analogy like Tom Sullivan's would demonstrate his gross irresponsibility and unfitness to be taking up space on the public airwaves or otherwise polluting public discourse. But hey, if Jonah Goldberg can get on the NYT bestsellers list hawking this kind of nonsense, evidently every liberal is now fair game.

Besides, when a Seattle radio talk-show host made a similaly invidious comparison -- calling Oprah a "Nazi" for her support of Obama -- he wasn't fired or summarily escorted out of the ranks of radio talk-show hosts. No, he essentially earned a promotion, getting a new gig at talk-radio powerhouse KFI-AM in Los Angeles.

I gather Sullivan is hoping to work similar magic for his career. And thanks to Jonah Goldberg, we can probably expect to hear a lot more "Adolph Obama" talk. You have to wonder, though, why liberals would be helping them.

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