I've been repeatedly critical of Democrats and progressives who've used phrases like "Bush=Hitler," "Bush is a Nazi," etc. I think such extremist language discredits the speaker far more than it discredits the target.
The debate of judicial nominees has provided some instances of Republicans doing much the same thing, points out Dennis at the Moderate Republican blog.
According to him, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist referred the minority Democrats' blocking of a couple of the president's picks for lifetime federal judgeships as "leadership-led use of Cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees."
Dennis comments: Note to Senator Frist: Two appointees who don't get a vote on the full Senate floor is not equal to assasination. In light of the federal judge who lost her husband and mother to a crazed man and also the federal judge in Atlanta who was murdered, this statement is callous. It might please the far right lunatics who you think are the base of the GOP these days, but it will turn off moderates and swing voters-those people you need to keep the Senate GOP.
But in any heated Senate debate, the award for most absurd remark is likely to go to Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum. This debate was no different. Santorum described Democrat actions in these terms: "IT'S THE EQUIVALENT OF ADOLF HITLER IN 1942 'I'M IN PARIS. HOW DARE YOU INVADE ME. HOW DARE YOU BOMB MY CITY? IT'S MINE.'"
Though Dennis himself does make the curious comment, "I don't know if the Dems should be using a tactic that was used by segregationists..."
Isn't this the same tactic as the Bush=Hitler crowd he deplores? One implies that since Bush and Hitler did the same thing on one issue that they are morally comparable. Isn't he doing the same thing with Dems and segregationists? How is blocking a couple of judges on the same moral plane as segreation?
4 comments:
& here I was thinking the Allies invaded France in 1944.
Not only that but the Allies never bombed Paris.
I think the comment linking Dem.'s and segregationists was referring to the fact that the filibuster was used by segregationists to block civil rights laws for decades. I saw the point as being more about tactics rather than an ad hominem attack. The filibuster has been compromised by the reprehensible deeds it accomplished in the past. Why would Dem.'s associate themselves with it now?
Well, just because something has been exploited by malefactors doesn't automatically mean that thing is inherently wrong. Is patriotism inherently bad just because it's been exploited in the past (and present) to whip up war sentiment?
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