Yes, the Right Is Using Nazi Comparisons

Ed Morrissey and John McCormack, two smart conservatives, have two dishonest responses to this morning’s discovery that a popular “Obama=Hitler” poster was created by the cult of fringe Democratic activist Lyndon LaRouche. Morrissey calls the LaRouche poster “the origin of the ‘Nazi’ references at a handful of town-hall protests.” McCormack calls the LaRouche activists “left-wing Democrats,” and grouses that the media will unfairly focus on the “tens — nay, dozens — of conservative protesters out of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands who will attend Obamacare town-hall meetings this month holding signs comparing Obamacare to Nazism.”

A couple of things. First, how far is LaRouche from the mainstream of the Democratic Party? So far outside that the DNC banned LaRouche delegates from taking part in the 2000 convention, after a high protest (22 percent) vote in the Arkansas primary temporarily awarded those delegates. So far outside that 1986 Illinois gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III temporarily left the Democratic Party after LaRouche candidates won the party’s primaries for other statewide offices; Stevenson started a new “Solidarity Party,” then lost the election anyway. These people aren’t representative of any political movement.

Second, it’s silly to suggest that the only people who’ll compare Democrats to Hitler at health care events are LaRouchies. McCormack and Morrissey need to direct their ire at talk radio and personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who have frequently compared Democrats to Nazis. In the video below, Beck suggests that Al Gore is trying to create a new Hitlerjugend because he … told young people to get involved in politics!

McCormack and Morrissey have a problem with the media not pointing out that some of the people holding Hitler signs at rallies are fringe activists, not conservatives. McCormack even has a problem with the media reporting that a swastika painted on Rep. David Scott’s (D-Ga.) office might be a legitimate attack, suggesting that it’s “more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters,” because, well, you know, just because. They’re barking up the wrong tree. Just as there were moronic leftists who compared George W. Bush to Hitler, there will be moronic conservatives who compare Barack Obama to Hitler. Take the complaints to Limbaugh and Beck.