George Bush Resurrects Hitler to Attack John Kerry
The Bush campaign resurrected Adolf Hitler in an attack ad that uses his image with John Kerry's to highlight the message that it is not time for the "pessimism and rage" of his opponents. While the ad makes no direct link between Hitler and Kerry, the pairing of their two images carries the same message, just as Bush's rhetorical pairing of Iraq with al Qaeda created fear and loathing for Saddam Hussein before the war. Other faces in the ad -- Howard Dean, Al Gore, and Michael Moore -- round out this unmistakable message: those who oppose George Bush are evil.
If this latest attack stood in isolation, it could be seen as so much silliness, an over-the-top ad in a close and testy race. But the Bush administration has a history of aggressively attacking and destroying those who oppose them. Ask Tom Daschle or Max Cleland. Ask Patrick Leahy, who was cursed on the Senate floor by Dick Cheney.
Unfortunately, this kind of attack has been successful -- Daschle was effectively silenced for his opposition to the war; Cleland was defeated in his senate race -- so we can expect more unfair and aggressive attack ads in the months remaining of the campaign.
Although Joseph Stalin killed more people, it is Adolf Hitler who best embodies evil in this era because his crimes were so cold and senseless and of a magnitude never before seen. By demonizing Jews, homosexuals, the old, and the disabled, he convinced others to kill them, to rid the world of their poisonous presence. The connection to John Kerry? Well, he killed a man in Vietnam, but that hardly qualifies for comparison to Hitler.
If anyone in recent history comes close, it is Saddam Hussein. He, too, killed many in his own country, showing a degree of inhumanity uncommon even in the brutal world of today. But even Saddam needed the Bush treatment to rally Americans to war: his threat needed to be exaggerated, his evil enhanced (Remember the WMDs? Remember the "mushroom clouds"? Remember the thousands of images of Saddam, all dark and dangerous?) This, too, was successful. Within months, Bush convinced millions of Americans that the world must be rid of Saddam. The world must be rid of evil. And the rest, of course, is history. Saddam is locked up. Iraq is in chaos. Over 800 Americans are dead. The financial toll will run into hundreds of billions.
Astonishingly, Bush sees himself as the antidote to all the "pessimism and rage" noted in his ad, which concludes by saying, "It's a time for optimism, steady leadership and progress." After demonizing John Kerry by comparing him to Hitler, after demonizing Max Cleland and questioning his patriotism, after demonizing Saddam Hussein to garner support for an unnecessary war, Bush wants us to be optimistic? In many ways the world is in tatters. Terrorism is up, the economy is down. Corporate profits are up, wages are down. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine are dangerous, deadly places where lawlessness rules. If this qualifies as "steady leadership and progress," we'll take pessimism and rage.
Source: yahoo.com/news?
