Enough With The Nazi Imagery Already!

I wrote about this very thing back in September, but I feel that the problem is getting worse instead of better:

Biden Claims a GOP 'Blitzkrieg'Vice President Biden is out with an alarmed e-mail cash appeal warning that the GOP will mount a “blitzkrieg” against Democrats in the fall.

Comparing GOP tactics to the fast-striking forces of Nazi Germany, Biden warns in a message sent by the DCCC today: “As things heat up, you can expect House Democrats will be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and tea party disruptions.”

And while the GOP is mounting a blitzkrieg, Democrats are the allies.

“Our Democratic allies in the House need your help, and the President and I hope we can count on you to come to their defense so we can hold onto our Democratic Majority and continue moving American forward in a new direction,” Biden writes in the appeal.

Subtle? Not so much.

Update: Republicans were not amused by the implications of the e-mail.

Kevin Smith, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner, e-mailed a comment that seems sure to get under Democrats’ skins: “When will Democrats learn that invoking the Nazis’ crimes against humanity in a political debate is simply inappropriate?”

And that goes for anyone, on either side, that chooses to invoke this outrageous shibboleth. Eight years of "BushHitler", replete with Photoshop pictures and giant paper-mache' heads depicting George W. Bush as the leader of the Fourth Reich were eight years too many.

No, it didn't start with Bush, but equating Republicans with Nazis has been a favored tactic of the Left for as long as I can remember, and it reached a fever pitch during the Bush administration.

Now, apparently believing that turnabout is fair play a (thankfully small) number of "Obama as Hitler" images have appeared at rallies and i find them equally as disgusting. President Obama is not Hitler, nor is he a Nazi; a far better case can be made that he's a Socialist, but that has been, and will be addressed further in the future.

This depiction of people with whom one disagrees as Nazis is harmful in the extreme; it serves to marginalize a particularly evil regime that perpetrated unthinkable crimes against humanity. These crimes were committed, not in the heat of the moment or in the fog of war; they were well-planned and executed with deadly precision. Nor did these horrors occur in an uncivilized backwater; they occurred within a highly developed western society.

"Just plain wrong" and "evil" are two completely different concepts; if we elevate "wrong" to "evil", what will we call real evil when it confronts us?