Klein Battles the Left on MsNBC, and Holds Up Mirror to Leftist Hypocrisy

On Friday Philip Klein of The American Spectator did a great job of highlighting leftist hypocrisy in his appearance on MSNBC.

Klein was on to discuss Rush Limbaugh’s recent comparison of the Nazi Third Reich eagle logo and the Obama Administration’s new health care logo.

While Klein said that there’s “no excuse” for Limbaugh to have made the comparison, he pointed out the hypocrisy of liberal outrage at the invocation of Nazi symbolism to disparage others’ views: “I have to laugh,” he said, “at liberals suddenly discovering it’s offensive to speak ominously of the President” and reminded viewers that during the Bush years, Moveon.org ran an ad comparing President Bush to Hitler.

As Klein skillfully pointed out, it is not that two wrongs make a right, but that leftists, in their self-righteous indignation, frequently exhibit a complete moral blindness.

How frequently throughout the Bush years, for instance, did leftists at anti-war rallies carry signs depicting President Bush as Hitler? How often did they refer to him to as a “terrorist,” a “war criminal” and a “liar”?

To me, in the context of a war in which the enemy’s prime tactic is to employ physical intimidation while trying to demoralize Americans, the leftists’ smearing of President Bush by making Nazi comparisons was far more dangerous and potentially destructive than Limbaugh’s comparison of the Nazi and Obama health care symbols. For one thing, the context in the former instance was that of trying to undermine/oppose U.S. foreign policy in the middle of wartime (as opposed to trying to undermine/oppose a potential domestic policy), and even more important, having heard the tape of Limbaugh, his tone is somewhat tongue-and-cheek as opposed to deadly earnest in the manner of the Moveon.org ad making the Bush/Hitler comparison.

In other words, I don’t think Limbaugh actually believes President Obama is the moral equal of Adolf Hitler. I think that, as an entertainer/commentator, he was trying to be provocative. But I think some historically ignorant leftists, in their morally obtuse rage that divides the world into evil conservatives and righteous liberals (ironically the black and white mindset they ascribe to all conservatives) probably do believe President Bush was the equivalent of a Nazi.

That said, Limbaugh’s comparison was tasteless, juvenile, and out of line.

Klein also did a great job pointing out that left-wing anti-Israel demonstrators have practically made a cottage industry of invoking Nazi imagery at anti-Israel demonstrations. He spoke of being the object of anti-Semitic slurs at these rallies.

The point is not to excuse right-wing cranks who carry signs depicing President Obama as a Nazi, because doing that is disgusting. It is to say that leftists, in feeling revulsion at such a display, should consider they are looking into a mirror. If anything, the maligning of the President and of U.S. allies like Israel that has long been acceptable at leftist rallies and legitimized as “activism” or even, heaven help us, “patriotic,” is far more widespread than any such expressions of hatred we are now seeing from the right.

(As a sidenote, I am not arguing such displays should be banned. Only noting that, their protection under the First Ammendment notwithstanding, they are not, simply by virtue of being protected expression, “patriotic.” If they are, is it “patriotic” to depict President Obama as a Nazi? Gimme a break).

During the Bush years, I, too, can attest to having seen countless Nazi symbols used at anti-Israel rallies, many times having seen former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon depicted as Hitler, and even having seen worse: signs saying “Hitler should have finished the job.”

This type of smear, which again is fairly common at pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel rallies as well as even at general anti-war rallies, is especially vicious because it compares Jews who are fighting in self-defense to those who have historically bloodied, nearly annihilated, and tried to humiliate the Jews as a people.

Perhaps the best way to make someone who is not sympathetic to Israel’s position understand how Jewish Israel-supporters feel seeing these sorts of signs held aloft at demonstrations would be to say, imagine seeing right-wing demonstrators carrying signs depicting President Obama as a Ku Klux Klansman. It is an especially perverse way of attempting to wound a group of people to compare them to their most monstrous historical tormentors.

So when leftists cry foul about right-wing cranks making Nazi comparisons, they should look in a mirror.

This entry was written by and posted on August 9, 2009 at 2:38 pm and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: , , . Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>