Hitler Watch: The "H" bomb's been dropped ... by Democrats!

In a move usually associated with Glenn Beck or Karl Rove, (ok, and FOX News in general), the always classy Hitler comparison was dropped. Three times. In three days. By three different Democrats.

You will all KNOCK THIS SHIT OFF!

According to HNN:

Within the space of a single week, California Democratic Party chief John Burton -- no stranger to strong language -- compared GOP campaign tactics to Joseph Goebbels's "big lie" at a state delegation breakfast on Monday; Pat Lehman, the president of the Kansas Democratic Labor Committee, also compared GOP voter fraud allegations with the "big lie" of the Nazis on Tuesday: "It's like Hitler said, if you're going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you"; finally, on Wednesday, South Carolina Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian joked that Republican governor Nikki Haley, who was conducting news conferences during the Democratic National Convention from a TV studio at the basement in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, was "down in the bunker a la Eva Braun."

Comparing your political opponents to Hitler/things Hitlerly is always a bad move, even if those opponents are doing some pretty un-Democratic things.  Besides squelching debate, dropping the H bomb is political discourse at it's dumbest and most hyperbolic, and unfortunately, as these examples show, members of both parties have and will drop a Hitler analogy to score political points.

Moreover, as Michael C. Moynihan, writer for the Jewish magazine Tablet, points out: Burton and Lehman's (amongst others) usage of the "Big Lie" analogy is actually wrong.

Back in January, Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen decried Republican attacks on President Obama’s health-care legislation, saying his critics were advancing the “‘big lie’ just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it.” (Glenn Beck, annoyed that Cohen was competing in the illiterate historical comparison business, blasted the congressman—while invoking Mao, Hitler, and Stalin, and adding that “Nazi tactics are progressive tactics first.”)

The modest backlash against such rhetoric framed the debate as yet another example of the triumph of crudity in American political discourse. But while the squadron of fact-checkers parse the claims of the Obama and Romney campaigns, no one bothered to explore the origins of the “Big Lie” theory, which is regularly conjured on Twitter, blogs, talk radio, and cable news.

A little detective work reveals the Big Lie to be a rather big lie.

Romney plays to Tea Party base with latest attacks over Diplomat deaths

In a press conference held yesterday, Mitt Romney, again reiterated a point made by his camp in a statement released to the press Tuesday night (Sept. 11) which claimed the Obama administration had failed to condemn the attacks on US Embassies in Egypt and Libya that resulted in the deaths of four diplomats. Romney also said that Obama sympathized with the attackers.




The talking point that Obama either sympathizes with or apologizes for our attackers (and is therefore, further indication of his being un-American or unpatriotic), is currently being parroted by the Republican party's opinion makers and leaders. 

RNC Chairman hops on the bandwagon

This sort of rhetoric is part of a nationalistic thread that dominates Tea Party speeches and literature and also ties into the movement's paranoia about a sort of foreign invasion, as it is perceived that America is being infiltrated by foreigners who conspire to destroy the country. The movement's views about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers are ideological and fundamentalist and their highly restrictive understanding of both leaves little or no room for debate. As a result, those who disagree with the Tea Party's interpretation of the Constitution and National Values are routinely labeled un-American: 

Tea Party supporters couple a deep belief in America's greatness with a narrow understanding of what makes America great.  As reflected in Santelli's rant and countless other Tea Party declarations, the Tea Party's constitutional vision consists of a small set of familiar conservative and libertarian principles—individual liberty, free markets, low taxes, limited federal power, and states' rights—that Tea Party supporters identify as the fundamental constitutional principles laid down by the founding fathers.[38]  The Tea Party movement articulates all of its policy positions in terms of these basic principles.  The Tea Party opposes the recent health care reform law, financial sector bailout, and proposed cap-and-trade legislation because they curtail liberty.  These initiatives interfere with the free market, violate the principle of limited government, increase federal taxes, and decrease the states' power.[39]  To the Tea Party movement, these basic principles represent the fundamental values that underlie the American way of life.[40] 

The Tea Party movement perceives these foundational American principles to be under attack by foreign and un-American forces variously denominated "progressives," "globalists," "socialists," and "collectivists," who threaten America's very existence.[41]  Rhetoric of foreign invasion and foreign infiltration dominates Tea Party speeches and literature.[42]>  Tea Party supporters perceive that foreign forces are succeeding in taking over the United States, transforming the country they love into an unrecognizable and alien land.[43]  Employing militantly nationalist rhetoric, the Tea Party movement seeks to combat the supposed foreign takeover by re-establishing true American values.[44]

Tea Party supporters routinely demonize as un-American anyone who supports policies that conflict with what they perceive to be fundamental American values.[45]  They describe President Obama, in particular, as foreign.[46]  He is sometimes described as literally foreign by so-called "birthers," who assert that he was not born in the United States.[47]  He is sometimes described as religiously foreign by those who believe he is secretly a Muslim living in a Christian nation.[48]  He is sometimes described as racially foreign by those who consciously or unconsciously hold race-based ideas of what it means to be a true American.[49]  But perhaps most often, he is described as ideologically foreign because he does not adhere to the Tea Party movement's notions of small government, low taxes, and free markets.[50]  All of these points of view share the core Tea Party message: President Obama and his liberal supporters are foreign usurpers, not real Americans, and all true patriots must rise up to defeat them before they destroy everything that is great about America.[51]

 The "Team Romney" press debacle has been widely seen as just that. However, the move was a bit more calculated. In reality, Romney was singing volumes to the Tea Party.

New Koch Brothers funded ad targets independents, sort of.

There has been much political fodder over the role that independents play in determining the outcome of Presidential elections. However, most wise big party political strategists realize that they must at some point try to catch the attentions of this group. As NTQ! blogger, Nathan Rothwell, pointed out, this may be more difficult for the Republicans to do than they realize. How does a party that plays on identity politics sway independent voters who feel they have been let down by the Obama administration? Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers funded SuperPAC, takes the "he's a nice guy, but ... " something vague about hope, something vague about change ... approach.

Addicting Info's Jack Watkins gives a breakdown of the ad:

Slick and potent in it’s non-vitriolic tone and, I think, likely to have the effect of reaching a lot of voters and give them reasons to just stay home, rather than actually motivating people to vote for Romney/Ryan. If it succeeds, it may cause people of that mindset to not pay much close attention to the rancor and debate going on in the campaign as it heats up and, just as the Obama team tries to focus the public’s attention on the devastating repercussions of a Romney presidency to all things that matter to these people. In short, I think its goal is yet a further form of voter disenfranchisement. I think the Republicans are playing a very cynical game here. Despite what every politician says (especially when they’re losing on message), they all pay attention to the polls.

A recent poll showing Obama being favored 2-1 by the 90 million eligible voters who are expected to NOT VOTE has got to scare the hell out of the Romney/Ryan team. Heavy turnout means certain defeat. Short of an economic meltdown on the order of 2008 or some other catastrophic world event, the Romney campaign is just not capable of swaying a majority of ALL Americans – even with 8% unemployment – to dump the president. He’s just too nice a guy. Too many Americans still remember the Bush/Cheney years and, it’s no accident that those two miscreants will be nowhere near the upcoming Republican Convention in Florida.

Battle of the Super PAC ads: will Obama Campaign bite?

The latest buzz in the world of presidential campaign ads and a short guide to analyzing the political discourse of campaign ads. 



Spending on political ads is at its highest, with the Karl Rove-backed super-PAC American Crossroads GPS coughing up the most cash for TV spots. The super-PAC spent nearly $42 million to air ads nationwide and in local markets. A good chunk of that money has been spent within the last two months alone. The group's latest ad aims to create an Obama vs Pro-Obama super-PAC gaffe, in the hopes the Obama administration will take the bait and bite.

Priorities USA Action PAC spending on tv spots by market

The Crossroads ad accuses the Obama campaign of coordinating with a super-PAC called Priorities USA Action. The ad in question never aired on any television station, yet is drawing the ire of Karl Rove's super-PAC as well as Mitt Romney and his aides, who also demand Obama denounce the ad. Although Priorities USA Action PAC is the top spender out of the Pro-Obama super-PACs, it ranks 4th overall. The group's spending ($7.2 mil this year) is dwarfed by the top Republican super-PACs and runs ads in fewer markets than its competitors.

So why bother? Because it is a really horrible thing to accuse anyone of causing someone else's cancer. Naturally, the claim has an icky feel about it, one that any candidate would rather avoid having stick around. If Obama's campaign doesn't respond to the claims that a group it "coordinates" with accused Romney of killing a woman via cancer, then Fox News and Rush Limbaugh can turn this into the message that they relentlessly hammer for a week straight. And, equally as bad, if the Obama campaign does respond in some way to the ad or the super-PAC, this too can be twisted into a character attack against Obama because "guilt by association" can still apply.

Check out the "controversial" ad in question, which once again, never aired on television.

FOX News pushes Conservative study that says new Voter ID laws "protect minorities"

The crew from FNC's "Fox and Friends" are up to their old tricks again: spreading disinformation provided to them via a Conservative think-tank with a dog in the fight.  Basically, everything that Steve Doocy just said about Voter ID laws is completely wrong and insulting to boot. This is but thinly veiled propaganda. Notice that Doocy quotes one of the senior fellows who conducted the study, "The criminals, more often than not, are Democrats violating the rights of people who tend to be black or senior," right after crudely asserting that "blacks and the poor" are typically the victims of voter fraud.  So according to the National Center for Public Policy, Democrats are committing voter fraud against African Americans, yet there is no mention of the sizable percentages of African Americans who will be disenfranchised as a result of Voter ID laws, which are supposed to protect said African Americans from losing their right to vote because of Democrats committing fraud. Holy crap! that is a headache.

Of course, the arguments in favor of Voter ID requirements are framed around "voter fraud," which is almost non-existent. And the few rare cases in which voter fraud has occurred have never swayed the outcome of an election. According to the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice (New York University School of Law):

Joe the Plumber uses Holocaust to justify unrestricted gun laws

 

If only the Armenians and Jews had guns, they could have defended themselves from genocide. This is the ridiculous claim Samuel Wurzelbacher makes in his new ad. "Joe the Plumber," made infamous by the McCain campaign and the mainstream media in the 2008 election season, is running as a Republican in Ohio's 9th district. The video reinforces American exceptionalism, uber-Bush-era style patriotism and the idea that Obama wants to "take away our guns." On its own, this propaganda is disturbing enough. But like anything election-related, it must be looked at in context. These themes are pervasive in Republican propaganda, and the claims in this video will make sense to those who fit these themes into their own ideologies. Just remember the Tea Party (who we hear little about these days ...hmmm), who at the height of their media popularity, were repeating the same themes about guns. Even in the wake of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, mainstream Republicans, particularly Glenn Beck, and Tea Party alike behaved in a most expected reactionary manner: doubling down on their gun rights as well as the notion that guns are needed to defend oneself against a tyrannical government. Exactly the point Joe the Plumber makes.