June 11, 2005
HOLOCAUST HIS DRESDEN?:
Rangel in 'Holocaust' firestorm (Lloyd Grove, 6/10/05, NY Daily News)
Powerful lawmaker Charlie Rangel has provoked the ire of the Anti-Defamation League by likening U.S. military action in Iraq to the Holocaust of World War II.The Iraq war "is the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country. ... This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed," the 74-year-old Harlem Democrat insisted during a Monday radio appearance on the WWRL-AM morning show with Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter. "The whole world knew and they were quiet about it because it wasn't their ox being gored."
When interviewer Malzberg challenged Rangel's analogy, the congressman replied: "I am saying that people's silence when they know things terrible are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust."
Yesterday, after Malzberg sent me an audiotape of Rangel's appearance, ADL President Abraham Foxman responded: "It is so outrageous that a leader of Congress would compare one thing to the other. Sometimes we say it's ignorance. Charlie Rangel is not ignorant. Charlie Rangel has been there." [...]
Foxman retorted: "It is so outrageous that I think he owes an apology not only to the families of the victims of the Shoah, but he also owes an apology to the soldiers who are fighting for freedom.
"If the world had recognized the evil of Hitler early enough - just like we're confronting the evil of terrorism and fundamentalism now - then maybe the 6 million wouldn't have died."
During the filibuster debate Senator Santorum made a silly comparison to Nazi Germany. He promptly apologized. Democrats compare Republicans to Nazis, Islamicists, Klansmen, Bolsheviks, Confederates, etc., every week and they apparently don't even see anything wrong with it. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2005 8:53 AM
The fact that Charley Rangel would be setting tax policy for the US in a Democrat Congress should be trumpeted on the airwaves throughout America.
Posted by: bart at June 11, 2005 12:39 PMbart;
Welcome back! We missed you.
Mr. Judd;
I'm not so sure that the Republican side sees anything wrong with the comparison, only that Old Media does and hounds Republicans but not the Democratic Party about such things.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at June 11, 2005 1:04 PMAOG - I think Republicans find something wrong with this comparison as you hardly ever hear this type of analogy coming from a GOPer. That is what made Santorum's stand out so much. In contrast last year you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Dem comparing Bush to Hitler.
Posted by: AWW at June 11, 2005 3:04 PMI compare some Democrats to progressive leftists, Marxists, Stalinists, Husseinists, socialists, Leninists, Castroistas, Islamicists and Communists almost everyday and don't see anything wrong with it; but I've been chronically polarized ... by people like Wrangel.
Posted by: Genecis at June 13, 2005 12:38 PM