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So What’s With All The Nazi Analogies?

October 16th, 2007
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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I have broken what for me has been a cardinal rule in recent days in using Nazi analogies when writing about the Bush administration’s embrace of torture as well as a deafening lack of response from most Americans to this and other outrages not unlike the Germans who failed to speak out about the excesses of the Third Reich.

Nazi analogies usually are bad because they stifle debate and inevitably trigger side debates about whether comparing someone to Hitler or something contemporary to an aspect of the Third Reich is appropriate, let alone in good taste. And then further side debates about whether calling someone a Nazi is as bad as calling them, say, a “kike” or “nigger.”

Then there is Godwin’s Law, which states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches inevitability.

As a longtime newspaper editor, I forbade use of Nazi analogies by my reporters because they were unnecessarily inflammatory and the comparisons invariably were exaggerated.

Many a public official has found to their dismay that the backlash against offhanded Nazi analogizing is far more damaging than their remark is effective. Then there is CNN pop-off Lou Dobbs, who earlier this year became the umpteenth media maven to feel the wrath of Jewish groups for breaking their secret rule book of inappropriate analogies after he accused advocates for illegal immigrants of using propaganda techniques employed by Nazis.

I bring some personal baggage to the issue, as well. I am proud to say that Jewish blood courses through my body, my family lost a number of relatives in Hitler’s death camps and a dear Jewish uncle survived years as an American POW because he happened to be a dentist and worked on the teeth of his captors. So I suppose that I am even more on guard for false or misplaced analogizing.

Having said all that, I have broken my rule for a couple of reasons . . .

Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 6:04 am and is filed under Torture, Donald Rumsfeld, Scandals, Justice Department, Bush Administration, Holocaust, Hypocrisy, Legal Matters, Radical Islam, Nazis, Freedom of Speech, Iraq, Congress, George W. Bush, Media, Tyranny, Civil Liberties, CIA, History. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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