Rush Reax

It is really amazing to me how the mainstream media goes out of its way to excuse any vile and hateful thing that comes out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth. Yesterday was no exception as Limbaugh used his radio show to compare President Obama and other Democrats in Congress to Hitler and the Nazis. Even though they reported on it most pundits on any of the cable networks just acted as if it was Rush being Rush kind of like baseball fans say its just Manny being Manny.

Thankfully Glenn Greenwald was not going to just let this go away without some pushback. He pointed out how many pundits and Jewish groups condemned MoveOn when a user posted a video comparing George Bush to Hitler. And so he set out to find out if any of those same people would similarly criticize Limbaugh for what he said and condemn him. You can see the responses he gets here.

This is what Cliff May had to say:

It is wrong, outrageous and damaging for Rush Limbaugh to compare Obama to Hitler. . . . Such hyperbole only serves to confuse and trivialize issues much more grave than tax rates and health-care plans.

Now those reactions are good but the one I think most people were waiting to see was from the Anti Defamation League and Abe Foxman. The reason being is that Foxman has been savaging Democrats for years for not being sufficiently pro Israel and because he really came out strong against MoveOn years ago. Well we finally have Foxman's statement and ir reads as follows:

New York, NY, August 7, 2009 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called attempts by some opponents of health care reform to bring Nazi imagery into the debate, "outrageous, deeply offensive and inappropriate" and condemned remarks by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who compared President Obama's health care logo to a swastika, and policies championed by the Democratic Party to those of the Nazis.

"Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. "Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler. This is not where the debate should be at all."

In recent days, street protests against President Obama's health care plan have gotten ugly, with some protestors appearing in photographs wearing swastika and SS symbols.

That prompted Rush Limbaugh to remark on his radio program that, "They accuse us of being Nazis, and Obama's got a healthcare logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook." He went on to compare certain Democratic Party policies to those of the Nazis.

"Comparisons to the Nazis are deeply offensive and only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime's crimes against humanity and the murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust," said Mr. Foxman. "I don't see any comparison here. It's off-center, off-issue and completely inappropriate."

I would have liked something even stronger but I'll take it, that's for sure.