All too often leaders within the Republican Party have been comparing Obama to Hitler. With this kind of rhetoric, one would think that Obama must be trying to pass legislation to enact some of the brutal policies of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Its worth remembering the kinds of policies Hitler actually enacted to evaluate Republican's comparisons. Hitler setup secret trials without traditional justice, created torture facilities, began widespread surveillance of his people, scared his people into fearing and hating a religious minority, lied to the public to get support for war, and denounced dissenters as being on the side of foreign terrorists. Obama has done none of these things. In fact, Obama fought against doing these very same acts while they were being championed by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress.
Bush and Cheney setup a new court system they called “Military Commissions” that were so clearly designed to thwart traditional American justice that the Supreme Court shot it down twice (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/29/AR2006062900928.html , www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/12/boumediene/). To this day, those on the political right argue that our enemies do not deserve fair trials and it is Obama who has pushed to try many of our enemies in our traditional Federal court system. It is Obama who has stood up for preserving the rights outlined in the Constitution and it is the Republicans who are looking to subvert these rights.
Bush and Cheney also setup a comprehensive torture regime euphemistically referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Despite regularly telling the public that “America does not torture” through the eight years of the Bush administration, the Republicans now concede that many prisoners were tortured. Mock Executions, threatening to rape and kill prisoners' family members, beating prisoners until they are unconscious, using dogs to attack prisoners, choking prisoners until they are unconscious, using electrical shock torture on genitalia, and a variety of other perverse sexual forms of torture were amongst the “techniques” began under the Bush Administration. (
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/p/torturelite.htm ,
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/03/23/story562592643.asp). To this day, many on the right (Cheney most vocally) continue to publicly advocate for torture. It was Obama, in his first few weeks in office, that ended America's support for torture.
Bush and Cheney granted widespread new powers to American Intelligence Agencies to spy on Americans (
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2003/dec/15/00012/). With support of the Republicans in Congress, they began wiretapping Americans phones, reading Americans emails, our text messages, monitoring our internet usage, and our library usage all without warrants. To this Day, Bush Administration officials and their Republican cheerleaders stand by their decision despite conceding they broke the law by spying on Americans without a warrant (
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770304290648701.html). Obama has done nothing like this.
During the Bush Administration, Americans' fear and hatred of Islamic people has skyrocketed (
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese356.html). Racial and religious discrimination was advocated and institutionalized, euphemistically referred to as “racial profiling” (
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/profiling.html). As a result Islamic people now live in fear of reprisal from their neighbors, coworkers, and law enforcement agencies because of who they are, rather than anything they have done. Obama has stood strong against racial profiling.
In the run up to the war in Iraq, the Bush Administration claimed with certainty that they knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,was developing nuclear weapons, and that this threat justified a military invasion and occupation. Americans were famously told by Bush in 2002 that “we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud” (
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/). Most of the world did not believe our intelligence (including most of our allies) and asked us to share the intelligence in order to gain their support for the war. Bush refused. If our intelligence was so strong, why didn't Bush share the intelligence with a couple key allies in order to gain their support? The answer is simple: after occupying Iraq for over eight years now, one can say with certainty that no weapons of mass destruction exist. With that knowledge, you can be certain that the intelligence was not nearly as strong as Bush and Cheney claimed. Obama, on the other hand, saw through the Bush Administration's lies and denounced the invasion from the beginning.
One of the hallmarks of the Bush Administration was their systematic attacks on any dissenters. Anyone in the media who did not support the Administration was labeled as “supporting the terrorists.” The Administration went as far as to get former CBS Anchor Dan Rather fired after working there for 44 years because he criticized Bush for walking away from his Texas Air National Guard commitments during the Vietnam War, of which he is litigating because no one has ever disproved his argument or the secret documents he aired on television (
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10139 ,
http://www.usa-presidents.info/gwbush.htm). Not to mention the vitriolic attacks on anyone who voted against the wars, torture, secret trials, or warrantless wiretapping. Democrats were, and still are, told they don't support the troops if they don't support Bush's policies. And these attacks were also directed towards dissenting citizens. People who marched in the streets in protest were called unamerican and in cahoots with the terrorists by conservative leaders. Many were beaten in the streets and locked up. The Bush Administration went as far as to use the FBI to investigate, spy on, and infiltrate protesters (
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/national/23FBI.html). In a 180 degree reversal, conservative leaders today say protest is an American tradition while supporting the Tea Party Protesters.
To be fair, Bush was no Hitler. Although Bush embraced and enacted many of the policies that Hitler enacted, he never created massive death camps that put millions to death. Adolf Hitler did not stop with a systematic rollback of freedoms, rights, and justice or by starting wars based on lies. Hitler killed around 6 million innocent Jews and Gypsies in the Holocaust, one of the worst stains on our planet's entire history. No American president has ever done anything even close to this, including George W. Bush. Of course this doesn't stop conservative activists from putting Hitler mustaches on Obama pictures or making signs with swastikas to try to show their opposition to Obama's policies.
The comparison between Hitler and Obama is absurd! Hitler setup secret trials to thwart traditional justice and Obama has pushed for policies that make American justice the envy of the world. Hitler setup a torture regime that carried out all kinds of heinous acts while Obama has stood strong against the use of torture for any reason. Hitler engaged in widespread surveillance of his people while Obama has brought America back to the rule of law. Hitler spoke on the evils of racial and religious minorities while Obama has encouraged America to embrace diversity. Hitler lied to his people to generate support for war while Obama called-out and denounced the lies leading up to the war in Iraq. Hitler persecuted dissenters with an Iron Fist while Obama has allowed Tea Party activists to openly dissent without fear of retribution.
In addition to all of the stark policy differences, Hitler was a conservative white supremacist who sought to exterminate racial and religious minorities through the Holocaust and Obama is a liberal black man who heavily values and promotes religious and racial diversity. Republicans need to step back and take a look in the mirror before pointing their swastikas at Obama.
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