The MoveOn.Org commercial juxtaposing President Bush with Adolph Hitler.
I am now officially supporting Bush in 2004. Right now the Democrats either really believe Bush is Hitler, and thus have no perspective and should officially be barred from making foreign and domestic policy decisions, or they are too stupid to understand how insensitive a commercial comparing Bush to Hitler might be, and thus are simply too stupid to serve in any official duty.
Quite a nose-dive the Democrats have taken in recent years.
mark
The same group whose members voted to endorse Howard Dean. Coincidence? I think not.
Moe Lane
Not quite that bad, John: it was an entry in their contest and not ‘officially’ endorsed by moveon.org; they even removed it after complaints.
Eventually.
Dodd
That doesn’t really change anything all that much. They selected the judges that chose this one as the winner, after all.
Dean
One has to wonder:
Would this be as big a deal if they hadn’t just been granted $15M by George Soros?
Conversely, did Soros give this group, rather than, say, the Sierra Club or the DLC or the Center for Promoting Democratic Presidential Candidates Forever, precisely because of their beliefs?
Drew
Hey Dodd,
If you bothered to look at the move on website you’d see that the winners aren’t going to be announced until January 12th, and the commerical in question isn’t even among the 15 finalists. Jesus Dodd.
drew
One more thing,
Do we know the submission policies of this contest? Do we know if other commericals were rejected and not posted in favor of this particular commerical?
These are important questions. Would it be fair for the Democrats to use the comments section of a right-wing website against GWB, of course not. This commerical may, depending on the answers to my questions, fit in the same group with blog comments.
Hipocrite
Hmm.. A link to the RNC purporting to be a MoveOn commercial…
Someone find Nathaniel Serling. The lights on the tanks need to get turned on before any more friendlies die.
caleb
“That doesn’t really change anything all that much. They selected the judges that chose this one as the winner, after all.”
Ummmmm…Dodd….no…they didn’t.
Nice try though.
Moe is correct.
JKC
A couple thoughts:
1) Stupid ad, and MoveOn ought to have their collected head examined for even posting it on their site.
2) Ere all the howls of righteous indignation start on the Right, let’s not forget the “Clinton had Vince Foster murdered” and “Clinton sold cocaine” hysteria generated by the Moonbat Brigade of the GOP.
Of course, it would more useful to actually debate issues, but I guess that’s less fun.
Karen
I think the question to ask is if a reasonable person would have even posted this on their website. I wouldn’t (if I had a website, of course) and I don’t care what rules I had set up beforehand. This ad is so far over the line and trivializes what was one of the most horrific periods in human history. Those responsible for this ad have lost all claim to tolerance or compassion. Moveon.org is supposedly not a far left organization and has been addressed by some prominent Democrats. They are now disclaiming all responsibility. How typical.
MonkeyPants
The Democrats are doomed.
drew
What about Rush Limbaugh’s little name for Howard Dean?
“Nakita Dean”
Certain segments of the right and left are guilty of idiotic shit from time to time.
Cole’s blog-son Misha has based his entire web career in the trivialization of Adolf Hitler. Like I said crazy shit comes from both sides.
Dean
JKC:
So, either one comes away w/ the idea that b/c the GOP was stupid and insane in the 90s, therefore the Dems should not be called on being stupid and insane in the Oughts (or whatever this decade is called)?
Or one comes away w/ some kind of tit-for-tat process.
Well, fair enough, JKC. But remember, you’ve now used the “Vince Foster was murdered” and “Clinton ran Coke through AR” arguments, so those cards are used up.
M. Scott Eiland
As is often the case, Chris Muir’s take on this pretty much coincides with my own–except to add that if Dean’s crowd wants to push this particular meme (not saying that they are–at least not officially), I’m just going to sit back with popcorn and enjoy the show.
SDN
And of course they’ve put up a second one http://www.rnc.org/moveon-h2.mov
What’s that old Chicago gangster rule? The first time is happenstance, the second coincidence, the third time it’s enemy action…..
M. Scott Eiland
“What’s that old Chicago gangster rule? The first time is happenstance, the second coincidence, the third time it’s enemy action…..”
Some guy by the name of Auric Goldfinger was rather fond of that one too, IIRC.
Andrew J. Lazarus
John, it might be time to think of staying home. Here’s excerpts from an op-ed in today’s NY Post, a publication I dare say more widely circulated than MoveOn.org’s URL.
Dean as Hitler, and Goebbels, and Lenin.
If you’d like to differentiate this from the MoveOn.org ad (except, to be honest, the article is even more juvenile and humorless than the ad, which I saw), I’d like to hear it.
Dean
Andrew:
Your comments (especially the block quotes) conveniently leave out EVERY SUBSTANTIVE POINT that Peters criticizes Dean with.
Frex, between the comment about Flannelshirts and the Goebbels comment, there was all this, which you simply clipped:
If Moveon.org’s ad had had a substantive element to it, ANY substance whatsoever, one might almost be more willing to at least credit the makers with a modicum more respect. In this regard, Peters is better than Moveon.
That being said, however, I WILL agree w/ you, Andrew—Peters’ comments are excessive and over-the-top. Dean may well be a liar (although his examples don’t quite live up to lie, any more than the WMD statements did), and I agree w/ Peters, insofar as he thinks that Dean knows squat about the subject.
But Peters did his argument little good by indulging in such vitriol.
Now, I’m curious, do you condemn Moveon? Or is this simply an exercise in “Offensive speech for me, but not for thee”?
Catsy
The sheer amount of disingenuous, convenient ignoring of facts here is astounding.
MoveOn did not product the two ads in question–two out of over 1,500 that were submitted. The ads were not, contrary to the misinformation that’s being spread about them, winners–in fact, they had been rated down so badly and persistently by the /democratic process/ at the web site–by the Democrat visitors being blamed for the ads–that they never would’ve had a chance of winning.
The complaints which led to the ads being pulled from the contest were icing on the cake. The ads had already been far more effectively condemned by those voting in the contest.
A little intellectual honesty would be appreciated from the right, folks. Quit spreading misinformation by portraying this as if MoveOn–or the majority of the left, who voted on them–approved of these ads.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Well, when I rated the Hitler MoveOn ad, I gave it a high score for technical values and the lowest possible for persuasiveness, overall quality, etc.
By the way, are *WE* any safer? Why then are we on Orange Alert? And as far as Osama, we gave the Nazi leadership a fair trial in which the burden of proof was on the prosecution. That’s what presumption of innocence means. Of course, it wasn’t hard to supply evidence to convict the Nazis, not would it be difficult to supply evidence to convict Osama. I have a very hard time understanding why Osama should be accorded less due process than Goering and Tojo were. Can you provide an explanation? The substantive claims of the article strike me as mostly wrong.
Dean
Andrew:
Where do you live? Anywhere close to NC? If not, did capturing Eric Rudolph make you feel any safer? Did it make Americans AS A WHOLE any safer?
Did the death of Andrew Cunanan affect you personally? Rudolph was still out there, iirc, when Cunanan blew his own head off. Yet, I’d venture that America as a whole was safer.
Was America safer when Mussolini was hanged? Tell the boys on the Indianapolis or the Franklin. Or the guys waiting to hit the beaches in Europe, after Yamamoto was shot down.
You once hinted you were a lawyer. If you’re a prosecutor in a city, apparently putting one criminal, or even a whole family, doesn’t actually make the city much safer, does it? I mean, you put one guy away, but there could be a Gacy, or a Dahmer still at work. Right?
As for the trial biz, tell ya what. You find me one quote, just one, from ANYONE in FDR’s cabinet that said that they didn’t want to prejudge the guilt of any of the Nazis, and I’ll concede your point. I’d ask it of FDR himself, but that might be unfair, I mean, in four years, I’m sure the President made many comments about he wouldn’t want to imagine prejudging any of the Nazis as guilty, eh?
Don’t bother with Churchill, btw. He wanted the entire Nazi hierarchy simply executed, no trial at all.
Or, how about this: Did Bill Clinton ever “prejudge” Milosevic? You know, actually openly accuse him of murder and genocide and the like? Or did Bill strictly adhere to a “I don’t want to prejudge Slobodan”?
But then, you probably don’t understand why so much of the nation thought Dukakis’ comment about dealing w/ Kitty’s theoretical rapist and murderer was outta-whack, either?
Andrew J. Lazarus
I’m not a lawyer—I was probably linking to my brother, who is.
There was a mass murderer (and cannibal, IIRC) in rural Russia a few years ago. When he was caught, did it make you safer? Not much, I suppose.
It strongly appears as if the capture of Saddam did little or nothing to safeguard the American homeland—we are on High Alert now—and the jury is still out on whether it’s even made our troops in Iraq safer.
I’m glad you brought up Dukakis. The right answer, to my mind, would have been, “The death penalty? Hey, I’d like to torture the guy to death with my own hands. But justice hasn’t worked that way in our tradition for over 1000 years; we have a system of laws that preempts personal revenge.” And that’s the case with the Nurenberg trials: we followed our system of justice, and as you know, a few of the less important defendants were even acquitted. Rather than challenge me about what FDR or Churchill said, I’ll ask you again: why does Osama deserve less due process than the Nazi leadership? If and when you come up with a plausible answer to that, I’ll start researching the history of the Nuremberg Trials.
Steve
Andrew,
There are more than one source of threats to America. Removing one of them does NOT mean there cannot be an Orange Alert.
I would think something this obvious should not have to be pointed out.
Tatterdemalian
Dubya doesn’t do anything to make us feel safer.
He does things that make us BE safer.
JKC
Actually Dean, the point of my post was that hyperbole from either side is idiotic and a lot less useful than an actual debate over real issues would be.
I’m sorry if you didn’t get that from my post.
Slartibartfast
Wow. Misha’s site is a shrine to Hitler? Who knew?
Dean
Andrew,
So, you gave the commercials poor marks for persuasiveness? Is that what you call a condemnation?
By that light, Peters’ op-ed was bad b/c it was unpersuasive, but there’s nothing really WRONG with the message or the comparison of Dean to Hitler, Goebbels, etc. Is this what you consider an appropriate response? Somehow, I doubt it.
As for the Russian Chikatilo, if he were going abroad and doing his killing as well, yes, frankly, we WOULD be safer. Last I checked, Saddam seemed to have few qualms about funding terrorism abroad (Israel) and invading other countries (Iran, Kuwait). I trust you opposed Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing operations WITHIN Serbia (i.e., the Kosovars), since he did it all at home?
As for “pre-judging,” first, it’s absolutely appropriate to note that the Chief Executives of two (probably three) allies had no qualms about prejudging the guilt of the Nazis. It suggests that some leaders, some actions are sufficiently horrific that they outrage all decent people.
More to the point, it would be inappropriate to do so BY THE JUDGES. Do we think that Howard Dean (or Dubya, or Blair) are going to be sitting with wigs and robes judging bin Laden?? I MIGHT buy the argument that a judge who might be called should not be openly prejudicial, although one wonders whether Jeffrey Dahmer’s judge or Charles Ng’s was quite so cold.
Third, Nuremburg was, as judicial precedent goes, more than a little questionable. At minimum, it was NOT American law at work, certainly if one were to ask the Soviet judges. More to the point, as the Left loves to point out for Iraq, it was internally contradictory. By what right did the Soviets have judges to pass judgement on mass murder?
And if you read the case study of the cross-examination of Hermann Goering, you’ll find that, in fact, the judges most certainly prejudged the guilt of at least some of the top leadership, if only because the prosecution, at times, was, ah, poor.
So, in light of these considerations, I’d say that not only is prejudging not contradictory to Nuremburg, it may well have been fully within the spirit of it.
Oh, and I hope you give Dean the same advice that you apparently felt for Dukakis. It served the latter so well, after all.
Ricky
Andrew, if we caught the anthrax mailer today we’d still be on orange alert.
But we’d be safer as a country.
TO ALL: Moveon.org saw the ads and published them on their site. That’s akin to me mailing John Cole a comment, him reading it & then publishing it as a post. Moveon.org is a collection of leftist reactionaries and the sooner the mainstream Democrats distance themselves from them, the better. Otherwise, the party and all the Soros millions will swirl around collectively down the toilet of continual-minority-party.
Ricky
Lastly, the correlation of a big-mover within the DNC and a bunch of Yahoos that produced “The Clinton Chronicles” that was stiff-armed by the GOP & only pimped by folks like Falwell, is illustrating.
It shows that the inmates are running the asylum over at the DNC, and that’s a damn shame.
Harry
Hmmmm. I saw the ad. It showed George W. Bush to be Adolf Hitler. I saw no other nuance or irony in the ad. I saw this ad on MoveOn.org.
All this proves is what results when people who have shit for brains produce what they consider smart political commentary for other people with shit for brains who are given way to much money by still more people with shit for brains. Alas all of these people, who by the way have shit for brains, sit around with way to much time on their hands and throw their urine and fecal matter on anyone stupid enough to get too close to them.
And no, no one will ever be completely safe, even with the capture of Saddam Hussein or OBL. But here in America I sure am safer with the Second Amendment, my Henry AR7, my Model 1911, and my goddamn willingness to use them when threatened by someone with shit for brains.
Tongue Boy
It strongly appears as if the capture of Saddam did little or nothing to safeguard the American homeland
Tongue Boy
That first paragraph should have been italicized as it was a quote from a Lazarus post. Don’t know what happened…
Dean
Thanks, Tongue Boy.
You reminded me of the observation, “There are some ideas so stupid that only intellectuals would believe them.”
HH
I looked on the original Drudge posting and he couldn’t be more clear about what they are. He also points out, what MoveOn leaves out, which is their own rules stated they would post up anything that they could put on television. Therefore there were SOME rules about what could go there and they found these acceptable. Secondly, when MoveOn lied about the Cleland ad in their response they destroyed the last shred of credibility they had left.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Tongue Boy, italics don’t work on this site. Neither do your examples.
If a plant closes in Texas and reopens next door in Mexico with Mexican workers, is the Texas economy better off? (Cf. Iowa and Kansas, or diverting anti-terror resources to a “sideshow”.)
You keep supplying what you think are killer examples, and most of them don’t seem relevant. It’s more like “Of course sending a goat into the wilderness makes us safer, because it carries the congregation’s sins.”
The overthrow of Saddam did make *Israel* slightly safer. (Not as much as you might think, because his aid to anti-Israeli terror groups is not at all essential to their operations.) But Saddam had no WMD, no delivery system capable of reaching Western Europe much less America, and NO ties to Al Qaeda.
It’s the OFFICIAL color-coded view of the government that we are in MORE danger now than before Saddam’s capture. I realize one can make a counterclaim that this is temporary, that in the longer run the capture will make us safer, but the mechanisms you have posited are a version of “action at a distance”, and history is too large for quantum effects.
lowercase h harry
Hmmmm. I saw the ad. It showed George W. Bush to be Adolf Hitler. I saw no other nuance or irony in the ad. I saw this ad on MoveOn.org.
All this proves is what results when people who have shit for brains produce what they consider smart political commentary for other people with shit for brains who are given way to much money by still more people with shit for brains. Alas all of these people, who by the way have shit for brains, sit around with way to much time on their hands and throw their urine and fecal matter on anyone stupid enough to get too close to them.
And no, no one will ever be completely safe, even with the capture of Saddam Hussein or OBL. But here in America I sure am safer with the Second Amendment, my Henry AR7, my Model 1911, and my goddamn willingness to use them when threatened by someone with shit for brains.
I’m enjoying living a double life as capital H Harry and owning an AR7. It’s a nice thought to imagine all 140lbs of me running through Cambridge, MA threatening aging hippies and Harvard tweedy types with a gun I can barely carry. Ahh, what fun!
Kimmitt
What does it feel like to be played like a little violin by the RNC?
Hucklebuck
re “Quite a nose-dive the Democrats have taken in recent years”.
I’d like to thanks Terry McAuliffe personally for this and, as long as I’m at it, reality deniers everywhere, but Andrew in particular.
JPS
Kimmitt:
Feels pretty good; you should try it!
Andrew: I agree with you on the Peters article; I was very annoyed by those references, and thought they detracted from his substantive points.
As far as Saddam Hussein’s capture making us or not making us safer, you’re begging the question; it isn’t whether we’re safer than we were, it’s whether we will be safer five years from now than we would have been if we’d taken the advice of the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party, and left the man where he was.
Hard to prove, now, but I’d be willing to argue very strongly in the affirmative.
JPS
Sorry Andrew; I should have read your last paragraph more closely before posting. Your second-to-last paragraph got me so worked up, I felt I needed to argue with you right away, and I jumped the gun.
Kimmitt
Also from the RNC site:
“Haley’s not just a great candidate. He’s also a friend and a mentor. It is with great pleasure that I congratulate him on his victory.”
I suppose it’s all about what’s more important to you — a couple of 30-second spots produced by some fringe groups and roundly trounced by much better ads in the evaluation, or official lauding of the candidate of choice for the CCC.
Dean
Kimmitt:
Haley doesn’t support the CCC. He’s just using them. They’re very good at getting voter turnout and providing access to folks.
Hey, it’s Haley who’s using them, you know.
And, besides, in the larger scheme, the number of CCC types is far smaller than those who actually voted for Haley.
I suppose it’s all about what’s more important to you—defending the Left’s regular appearances with ANSWER, or attacking the Right for doing pretty much the same thing.
But when you consistently refuse to condemn what your own side does, forgive us for looking more than a little skeptically at any attacks you send the other way.
Kimmitt
Please list for me the Democratic governors who’ve appeared at fundraisers for ANSWER, and/or had ANSWER do fundraising for them. Pictures would be particularly fine.
While it is relevant that Barbour is not directly of the CCC but using them, it is vital to understand that the CCC is willing to be used — that they believe Barbour to be close enough to their politics to be worthy of fundraising and photo-ops.
Ricky
Kimmitt, the Democrat incumbent participated in the same events with the CCC retreads. More than once.
You don’t want to use that example.
Kimmitt
Again, it’s not so much that there is a racist governor in Mississippi (imagine that!), but that the national website for the RNC is lauding him instead of being quietly embarrassed. Or loudly embarrassed, I suppose.
Kimmitt
It occurs to me that moveon.org is using this as a way to gauge the opinions of its membership. Now they have gathered a consensus on which issues are most important to their members (the ones which people made lots and lots of ads on) and which ones have the most broad appeal (the ones which got lots and lots of votes). And, you’ll note, “Bush = Hitler” very explicitly does not fall into either of these categories. Moveon.org has done us a service by showing how fringe that particular sentiment really is.
Robert Crawford
Kimmit — I guess the Democrats have never congratulated Robert Byrd for winning an election, huh?
Kimmitt
I doubt the CCC (or like-minded organizations in his area) would back Byrd these days, bud. But hey, prove me wrong — find me a picture of a smiling Byrd at a white supremicist fundraiser that was taken in, say, the past ten years.
Jon H
Dean,
Saddam *himself* was never a threat. The threat was WMD, which he would, theoretically pass on to terrorists who would use them against us.
If the WMD exist, they are still out there, available to terrorists, even though Saddam is in custody. So in that case, *we are no safer*, because the WMD may still wind up in the hands of Al Qaeda. We may, in fact be less safe.
If, as appears most likely, the WMD *did not* exist, and Saddam had nothing to give to terrorists, then we are no safer because that danger never existed in the first place. Again, capturing Saddam is beside the point. Our safety hinges only on the existence of WMD to be passed to terrorists. Having Saddam in custody can’t decrease a danger if it didn’t exist to begin with.
Actually, we may be less safe in that case, since terrorists may have acquired radioactive waste material in Iraq, material which wouldn’t qualify as ‘wmd’ but would still be nasty if used to make a dirty bomb.
Jon H
Regarding the Hitler ‘commercials’, realistically, they’re on the same level as particularly atrocious comments posted to a blog, or especially tasteless photoshop jobs posted to Fark or similar sites.
If you open something up to submissions, you’re going to get crap. It’s Sturgeon’s law.
Actually, it’s a bit better than Sturgeon’s Law. I’m surprised there were so few truly tasteless ads submitted, considering the large number of submissions overall. If, per Sturgeon, 90% of everything is crap, there should have been more tasteless ads.
In any case, MoveOn’s mistake was in not vetting the submissions better. Or, perhaps, in being naive enough to rely only on votes to pan the crappy submissions, rather than exercising editorial control from the start.
Lurch
The ads were reprehensible at best and offensive at any level. That there are people who actually believe Bush is Hitler is pretty frightening and speaks ill of their knowledge of history.
But it doesn’t surprise me at the level of hatred those of the looney left have for GWB. Even today they whine about how Bush stole the election despite all the facts to the contrary. Just take a peek at democrat underground and see the seething hatred and the support of the idea that Bush is Hitler and you have to shake your head at the utter ignorance. Don’t democrats think they are the smart ones? Well a little self examination by these people would reveal that they are twisted by hate and ignorance.
Some might say the right had the same hatred for Clinton, and true there was a high level of hate, but there was never anything to this level where a partisan organization called for ads denigrating the current president.
Again take a gander at DU and view the hatred and seething for yourself. You will be sickened.
Gary Farber
“Right now the Democrats either really believe Bush is Hitler, and thus have no perspective and should officially be barred from making foreign and domestic policy decisions, or they are too stupid to understand how insensitive a commercial comparing Bush to Hitler might be, and thus are simply too stupid to serve.”
This is truly, deeply, offensive, John. Who gave you the right to choose who speaks for Democrats? This is like picking out any right-wing nut to declare they are all fascists. This is the War On Straw.
This is not a Democratic majority opinion. Republicans don’t own patriotism. Republicans don’t own the flag. Democrats don’t, in fact, commonly compare Bush to Hitler. I’d tell you to stop lying, but I think you’ve genuinely deluded yourself on this. Meanwhile, real Democrats are patriots, loyal, and enraged at the idea we are not. Stop it. Just stop it. It’s disgusting.
It’s un-American.
Gary Farber
Suggestion: believing in a one-party state is not, actually, loyal to American ideals.
Slartibartfast
“It’s un-American.”
Tee-hee!
You know, I’m so busy being a racist, homophobic, money-grubbing, bedroom-peeping oppressor of the poor that I don’t even have time to engage in Left-baiting.
See how that works?
Kimmitt
“Some might say the right had the same hatred for Clinton, and true there was a high level of hate, but there was never anything to this level where a partisan organization called for ads denigrating the current president.”
Um, did you listen to Rush Limbaugh from the period 1993-2000?
wallster
Jon H- I would agree that we are definitely less safe since the Iraq war began. We’ve angered all of Islam with our unjustified invasion. Who knows when another OBL will arise from this anger?
It truly worries me that so many Americans are ignorant enough to not realize that this war has made us worse off in the long run.
Jon H
“there was never anything to this level where a partisan organization called for ads denigrating the current president.”
They didn’t need ads, they had the right-wing press to run with Richard Mellon Scaife’s scandal mongering.
Slartibartfast
Stop it. You guys are killing me.