johnny dollar's archive: sept-oct 2009

The Huffington Post is outraged:

Glenn Beck Compares Fox News To Jews During Holocaust

What was Beck's loathsome comment? A variant of a familiar verse:

When they're done with Fox, and you decide to speak out on something. The old, "first they came for the Jews, and I wasn't Jewish..."

To HuffPo this represented Beck making:

...an over-the-top analogy between, of all things, Fox News and Jewish persecution during the Holocaust.... Casual comparisons to the Holocaust are probably never a good idea...

Leaving aside the distinction between a comparison and an analogy, which seems to have eluded the writer--not to mention the truly "over the top" interpretation suddenly being applied to an oft-used quotation--we wonder just how sincere HuffPo's disapproval of Beck's scandalous statement really is. Because we've seen that same quote used by HuffPo scribes, and more than once--which must mean that they too were making "comparisons" to Jews during the Holocaust. Right? HuffPo's Coleen Rowley writes about trespassers who disrupted a Republican convention, and approvingly quotes the defense attorney using--what else?--"First they came for..." She must have been comparing the trespassers to Jews during the Holocaust. And there's more:

• Huffington Post compares a Bush pardon to Jews during the Holocaust
• Compares ACORN to Jews during the Holocaust.
• And our favorite, The Huffington Post compares Rod Blagojevich to the Jews during the Holocaust!

Casual comparisons to the Holocaust? Not a good idea, unless it's the Huffington Post making them. But hey, they're not alone. The Daily Kos chimed in as well:

Beck compares Fox News to Jews during Holocaust

Wow, the headline is almost word-for-word identical to HuffPo's. Now there's a coincidence. And yet, we find that they too seem to have been in the Holocaust comparison business for some time, based on this same famous quote:

• Daily Kos compares kids who beat up another kid to Jews during the Holocaust
• Kos compares ACORN to Jews during the Holocaust

We could go on and on. Talking Points Memo headlines:

Glenn Beck's Hate Speech: Likens Criticism of Fox News To Murder Of 6,000,000 Jews

Of course that would mean that TPM is equally guilty of hate speech:

• Talking Points Memo compares people who disagreed with Republicans criticizing McCain and/or Palin to murdering 6,000,000 Jews

Oh look, Keith Olbermann compares Newt Gingrich to Hitler. And do you remember when candidate Hillary Clinton compared factory workers to Jews during the Holocaust?

All of this, by the way, got started when Media Matters posted Glenn Beck's reference to Martin Niemoller's famous quote. Their headline:

Beck compares Fox News to Jews during Holocaust

But if the Media Matters folk think invoking the "first they came for" lines is really as odious as they pretend, one must wonder why they permit such references time and time again on their own site, from people comparing the next Supreme Court appointment, street protesters, and photographers to Jews during the Holocaust.

Could such shallow hypocrisy be any more transparent? How stupid do these people think we are?