One unfortunate side effect of the Bush=Hitler meme is that we can no longer look at Hitler without comparing him to Bush. We can't read about WWII and think of the horrors of those years without the knee-jerk satisfaction of how not-Hitler Bush really is. Lileks did it today:

In KlempererÂ’s book thereÂ’s an anecdote about a professor who is talking with some colleagues, telling jokes. Hitler goes to heaven. He talks to Moses, and says so, you can tell me. You set the bush on fire yourself, didnÂ’t you?

HeÂ’s reported. He goes to prison for ten months.

And, as Klemperer notes, he was “an Aryan.”

Ah, but donÂ’t we have the Big Lie? The WMD debacle? This is one of those things that makes me just turn off the radio or TV or hit the back button or whatever it takes to decamp.

I did it with Stalin back when I was reading The Gulag Archipelago:

I dare anyone who thinks the Patriot Act is killing democracy to read this book, where the first person to stop clapping at a tribute to Comrade Stalin, after 11 minutes of straight clapping, was sent to the gulag. Or the woman who happened to walk past a truck full of bodies. Or the man who had doodled on a newspaper photo of Stalin. All of them gone.

It's a crying shame that I can't visit a concentration camp without the smug satisfaction that today's Bush-haters have no idea what they're talking about. I don't want to think about Bush at a concentration camp. I don't even want the Bush=Hitler thought anywhere near my head, because it's completely demeaning to the real people of that era who died for nothing. I've seen a lamp made out of Jewish skin; how DARE anyone make that comparison to President Bush.

It's disgusting, and I'm disgusted that every time Hitler comes up, we find mental ways to disassociate him with Bush. I think that's revolting.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:35 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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