Cockburn: Hitler/Bush comparison doesn't work

[Terwilliger]

January 10 / 11, 2004

CounterPunch Diary
Bush as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01102004.html

<snip>

At the end of the first week in January the RNC lashed out furiously at a Democratic website Move0n.org for including in its featured entrants for robust campaign ads for 2004 a couple that offered Bush/Hitler comparisons.

<snip>

As a way of enticing undecided voters to vote against George Bush next November, both ads seem a trifle heavy-handed, which is probably why MoveOn.org's audience didn't include them in the 15 finalists. But this didn't stop the RNC screaming. Somewhat cravenly, MoveOn's Eli Pariser then said his group "regrets" the brief appearance of the two ads on the MoveOn website. They've gone now, though as of January 6 you could find the scripts of the offending two on the RNC's site.

Hitler/Bush comparisons began their current vogue after an article by Dave Lindorff appeared last February, here on CounterPunch.org, to which Lindorff is a regular and valued contributor.

In a full bore attack on Bush-as-warmonger Lindorff swept into an impassioned finale, declaring that "we must begin exposing George W. Bush and his War Party for what they are: craven usurpers aiming at nothing less than the undermining of all those things that most of us hold dear.

"It's going a bit far to compare the Bush of 2003 to the Hitler of 1933. Bush simply is not the orator that Hitler was. But comparisons of the Bush Administration's fear mongering tactics to those practiced so successfully and with such terrible results by HItler and Goebbels on the German people and their Weimar Republic are not at all out of line."

.......MORE..........

[H2O Man]

1. It doesn't work....

...because of the emotional issues involved. Better to compare bush to the stupid rich kid with the unreal sense of entitlement that we all knew in jr. high school.

[donhakman]

2. There are more "accidental" similarities than differences.

[bluestateguy]

3. Hitler was elected

So the comparison does not work.

[cosmicdot]

4. Bush may not be the orator, but he has technological advances

and infrastructure/logical support Hitler didn't quite have ...

Hitler as a person = the BFEE/PNAC/corporate board/rightwing think tank/media/spyware/military-industrial complex 'team' as a confederation

what makes CounterPunch think the Bush/Hitler comparisons began at its site?

"Hitler/Bush comparisons began their current vogue after an article by Dave Lindorff appeared last February, here on CounterPunch.org, to which Lindorff is a regular and valued contributor."

[Terwilliger]

7. well, I dont know that there was any public acknowledgment...

of Bush/Hitler comparisons until last year some time...here at DU and in leftist circles, but nowhere near the mainstream...enough for the National Review and Washington Times to need to respond to the idea.

[louis-t]

5. Other historical strategies similar to b*sh...

Mass importation of Irish cannon fodder in 1860,1861. Irish immigrants were forced to join military. Sound familiar?

[HawkerHurricane]

6. I wouldn't call it 'importation'

since the Irish came voluntarily (or fleeing for thier lives from the Brits)...
The fact that many (including a great odd grandfather of mine) were tricked into the Union army isn't the same as being forced, either. ("Sign here to become a American" "Welcome to the army")

[ixion]

8. the fact that they even have to debate this issue

means that there is a certain amount of validity to the argument, because if there were no validity whatsoever, it would not have gained momentum, IMHO.