The Media’s Hitler Hypocrisy Exposed
By K. Daniel Glover | September 24, 2009
This year's phony liberal angst about a tiny minority of "tea partiers" comparing President Obama with Adolf Hitler ranks high among the worst cases of media hypocrisy in history.
The press never batted an eye for eight years when the lunatic fringe of the left made the same kinds of comparisons between George W. Bush and Hitler. But all of a sudden, with the "first black president" in office, every Obama/Hitler sign must be publicized. Invoking Hitler is considered a "coded message" to right-wing racists and "an implicit call for politically motivated violence."
People who resort to such analogies on either side of the political spectrum are ignorant of Godwin's Law and should be condemned. But so long as they are the exception rather than the rule (they were more mainstream during the Bush years), they are not newsworthy. And speculations about attacks on the president certainly aren't newsworthy -- unless the speculator is a presidential candidate stoking fears about the potential assassination of her opponent.
So why are journalists obsessed with the Obama-as-Hitler story? Easy. They want to marginalize "the mob" by portraying everyone who dislikes Obama's policies as a loon determined to agitate violence.
The good news is that it's easier to combat such media deceptions when the people have the power of the press online. This video, which merges the audio of a Rachel Maddow segment on MSNBC with snapshots from eight years of Bush Derangement Syndrome that is still alive and well, does a great job of exposing the Bush/Hitler vs. Obama/Hitler media double standard:
Filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney provided more evidence last month at his blog, Brain Terminal. The Hitler-style hatred of Bush actually impacted Maloney's future.
"During the Bush era," he wrote, "the media looked the other way at the extremist element in the protest movement; the large number of protest signs bearing swastikas and mathematical formulae like "Bush=Hitler" just didn't interest them. But it did interest me, and because the media didn’t want to report it, I did some reporting of my own. The videos I posted online inadvertently launched me on a second career as a documentary filmmaker."
I have a feeling that many conservatives will be saying the same thing a decade from now -- and America will be the better for it.
UPDATE: Charleston Daily Mail columnist Don Surber, a colleague from my internship days in 1989, covered this topic in his latest piece. Here's an excerpt: "Nazism? Bushitler was a favorite epithet for George W. Bush for eight years. For every picture of President Obama with a Hitler moustache, I can show you 10 of Bush with a Hitler moustache."
[Cross-posted at Hot Air's Greenroom]
K. Daniel Glover is a project manager for Accuracy In Media. He has worked as an editor, writer and new media specialist in the Washington area since 1991, spending most of that time at National Journal and Congressional Quarterly.
8 Comments | Post a Comment
This is great and amazing. I laughed at the hypocrisy. I am truly astounded how people are in denial about themselves. These people really do live in their own little created world. I too think this should be send to Rachel but I will agree with you C.Roy that we will only hear crickets.
Remember the “Sarah Palin Is A C**t” t-shirts at the Obama rallies last year?
I wonder what the reaction would be from Maddow and the so-called ‘mainstream media’ if Michelle Obama’s name was used in such t-shirts at McCain rallies.
All I could recommend in such a scenario would be to take the ‘duck and cover’ position as the 1950’s elementary school kids had to during atomic bomb drills.
The ensuing explosion of feigned, politically motivated, ‘indignation’ from the media phonies would be the broadcast equivalent of a nuclear blast, for sure.
I never heard about the Sarah Palin t-shirts. This is abominable. Was this covered in any of the so-called MSM? Unbelieveable!!!
That these same liberals wantto whine about the Obama/hitler issue is astounding.
Perhaps the biggest difference is the fact that ALL of those signs and pictures of Bush as Hitler were in other Countries?
It’s no secret that Europe was plastered with ‘BUSH- International Terrorist’ signs, many sporting Hitler mustaches, but we don’t get to complain about those people, now do we?
The Hitler attacks on our current President are being done by Americans, not foreigners.
Nice try though, Pinnocchio!
C.Roy,
Yes, my friend, it’s very true about those vile tee-shirts. Just another illustration of the corrupt ‘MSM’.
Go to these links -
Anybody who tries to sell the idea that nobody in the media, MoveOn.Org, or the daily Kos ever called Bush a Hitler needs to look more closely at the Looney Left!
And the attacks on Sarah Palin exemplify the depths to which your sanctimonious liberals so easily sink.
September 24 at 7:34 pm | #1 | Link
Did anyone send a copy of this tape to Rachael Maddow? I get the feeling all you’ll get in return to this expose is a thundering silence.