What is it with right-wingers and the Nazi comparisons these days? Grover Norquist believes the Estate Tax is the moral equivalent of the Nazi Holocaust, Wal-Mart is using Nazis in the company’s print advertising, and now Bob Novak is comparing Dem tactics on judicial nominees to Nazi concentration camps.
This was the exchange on this weekend’s “Capital Gang” on CNN, between Al Hunt and Novak:
Hunt: “Bob, why would Senator Frist refuse an offer to break the deadlock?”
Novak: “Because the whole system is that you’re not going to have — like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber. You’re not going to let the Democrats do that, say, ‘We’re going to — we’re going to confirm this person, we’re not going to confirm the other person.'”
(As usual, the invaluable Crooks & Liars has the video.)
Up until recently, most civilized people reserved Nazi comparisons for the truly evil. The left, in particular, came under fire for linking Republicans to Nazis a little too often. The new trend seems to be the opposite — the right isn’t the victim of a malicious and unjustified comparison; the right is now the origin of these painfully stupid comparisons.
Can everyone agree to drop these references from their rhetorical quivers? And is it too much to ask that Novak apologize for his contemptible slur?