Bush: Dems Like Those Who Ignored Hitler

The WWII analogies have only increased in stupidity every time I've been convinced that they've reached their peak. What makes them so annoying is not only the low-blow they represent, but the fact that they (I suspect deliberately) obscure the reality of the current conflict. You can seldom make valid comparisons between a conventional war against a nation state and an asymmetric conflict with politically motivated bands of outlaws. Any president who does so as often as this one has simply doesn't deserve his post, but with Bush that has long been a given.

I keep hearing/reading about how Bush "is not stupid."

This has more than one meaning. In the sense that you have someone with fixed ideas, inability to admit a mistake, an inability to see the bigger picture, an inability to reject personal bias and the Bush vendetta against Saddam Hussein that got us into the trouble we're in, he is stupid.

Hitler did not come into power because he seemed like anyone else, nor did Stalin. They were intensely patriotic, intensely nationalistic, pointing to the outside threat, the "need" to control society, and punish anyone who even seems like a threat to their power.

But wait, I've always been told it's Dems like me who are like Lenin and Hitler. Y'know, being an enemy of freedom, wanting to ban words like Mom and Dad, trying to remove God from government and all that. Does this mean I can ignore myself?

Well, I gotta agree with the Decider-in-Chief on this one. Except that in this analogy he is the Hitler. Suspending liberties for his own citizens, invading countries without cause, and being supremely evil pretty much clinches this analogy for me. And the Bush is right that the spineless and brainless Democrats are ignoring all of this.

I have to wonder if by saying this he somehow wants to be stopped.

His stupidity and arrogance are matched only by his dishonesty and ignorance.

Back in August, The Guardian printed an opinion piece on Bush II's comparison to certain WWII-era PMs, Yes, George Bush does recall a British wartime prime minister: Chamberlain:

Like Bush, and unlike Churchill, Chamberlain came to office with almost no understanding of foreign affairs or experience in dealing with international leaders. None the less, he was convinced that he alone could bring Hitler and Mussolini to heel. He surrounded himself with like-minded advisers, and refused to heed anyone who told him otherwise. ...
Unlike Bush and Chamberlain, Churchill was never in favour of his country going it alone. ...
Like Bush, Chamberlain laid claim to unprecedented executive authority, evading the checks and balances supposed to constrain the office of prime minister. He scorned dissenting views, inside and outside government. When Chamberlain arranged his face-to-face meetings with Hitler in 1938 that ended in the catastrophic Munich conference, he did so without consulting his cabinet. He also bypassed the House of Commons, leading Harold Macmillan, a future Tory prime minister and then an anti-appeasement MP, to complain that Chamberlain was treating parliament "like a Reichstag, to meet only to hear the orations and to register the decrees of the government".

And so on. The article is by Lynne Olson, a former White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. She wrote the book Troublesome Young Men, which she describes as "a history of the small group of Conservative MPs who defied Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Hitler, forced Chamberlain to resign in May 1940, and helped make Churchill his successor." (I have not read the book.)

There is a long comment thread. One good one is:

Aw c'mon, this is an insulting comparison. Chamberlain had an actual working brain, he could read beyond 1st grade and string coherent sentences together. And as far as I know he didn't believe that God spoke to him nor was he an alcoholic.

Mixed in amongst the comments discussing the validity of making such comparisons, and of making this particular comparison, are almost-predictable wingnut rants: Missing the point, putting things into Ms Olson's mouth she didn't write, unsupported claims, et al.

People like George, who lack intellectual curiousity, can make such invidious comparisons because they don't have the background to know or care how far out of bounds such parallels really are. What does George know (or care) about WW II?

Must admit the Dems are laying themselves open to plenty of criticism. I myself, lifelong Dem, would like to hit each and every one of them over the head with a brick.

Bush looks for Democrats in a mirror.

Just a nit to pick:

who on Earth "ignored the rise of Lenin"???

The Russian Civil War, fought mainly between the "whites" and the "reds" with a lot of sideshows and minor players, saw all sorts of foreign expeditionary corps fighting the Bolsheviks; a partial list includes Japanese, Czechoslovak, Polish, British, French, American, Canadian, Italian, and German units.

I wonder what had happened if people HAD paid attention...

Oops. "I wonder what would have happened..."

Didn't GWB's grandfather Prescott Bush get charged and convicted of trading with the enemy i.e.Hitler? It was the Union Bank and the charges were laid in the fall of 1942 and all assets were seized. Funny how history is rewritten.

Geez, it is historically accurate to paint the Congress in the early forties as being "isolationists", but FDR was itching to get involved, and the U.S. provided arms and monies to England to fight Hitler. Furthermore, the isolationists provided time for Hitler to over-extend himself by pursuing two fronts. Granted there was, during this interim, a great deal of grief for the English and Russians, but it also enabled the U.S. to pursue two fronts, in Europe and the Pacific. And Bush forgot to mention the ignoring of the Japanese imperialism in the East, which proved even more problematic.

Well that is one way of looking at it.
Henry Ford built a huge factory in Germany and built tanks for the Reich all through the war and was awarded the highest honor a non-citizen could get in Nazi Germany. IBM sold the Nazis equipment used in the concentration camps and GWB's grand-daddy helped to fund it all. It is not realistic to think this all went on without the knowledge of the federal government. "Isolationism",I think, was simply hedging bets and waiting to see with whom to play ball.