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Max  Blumenthal

Behind the Obama-Hitler Slur

Barack Obama sign Jae C. Hong / AP Photo That outrageous comparison that Limbaugh and town-hall screamers have been making? Max Blumenthal tracks its origins to cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, whose followers pushed the attacks.

The June 10, 2009 public “listening session” of the newly created Federal Council Coordinating Comparative Effectiveness Research would have been an uneventful gathering had not Anton Chaitkin seated himself before the 15-member panel and began to read breathlessly from notes he had prepared for the hearing. After describing himself simply as “a historian,” the nondescript Chaitkin quickly launched into a diatribe against President Barack Obama and panelist Ezekiel Emanuel, the head of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and the brother of presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

According to one movement leader, top LaRouche advisers decided during the congressional debate over the stimulus package to liken Obama’s policies to those of Hitler.

"President Obama has put in place a reform apparatus reviving the euthanasia of Hitler Germany in 1939, that began the genocide there,” Chaitkin alleged. “Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and other avowed cost-cutters on this panel also lead a propaganda movement for euthanasia... They shape public opinion and the medical profession to accept a death culture… to let physicians help kill patients whose medical care is now rapidly being withdrawn in the universal health-care disaster.”

When Chaitkin was done, Emanuel calmly responded, “I think I do have a very long record of writing against the legalization of euthanasia, so the association of me and that seemed a little strange.” Emanuel then stood and excused himself from the hearing room, apparently unaware that Chaitkin had launched the opening volley of an orchestrated propaganda campaign designed to link him and the White House’s health-care reform proposals to the T-4 mass euthanasia program of Adolph Hitler.

Emanuel and his fellow panelists may have been similarly uninformed about Chaitkin’s senior role in the political empire of Lyndon LaRouche, the eccentric movement leader whose activities have confounded and outraged observers from across the spectrum. LaRouche has been accused of everything from Holocaust denial to gay bashing (his outfit introduced a ballot measure in California to quarantine AIDS patients). In 1988, LaRouche was convicted and jailed for mail fraud.

Leonard Zeskind, who studies extremist and cult groups, has called LaRouche a “crank fascist,” while Dennis King, the author of Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, went further, describing the former Marxist ideologue as a “pure Nazi” and totalitarian who tells his followers that they are members of an elite race called the “Golden Souls” who will one day rule the ignorant masses. In his investigative report on the mysterious death of LaRouche’s longtime printer, journalist Avi Klein wrote, “More than anything else… what [LaRouche’s movement] resembles is a vast and bizarre vanity press.”

While Chaitkin’s confrontation with Emanuel remained obscure and generally unreported, LaRouche’s myriad journals and Web sites promoted the incident along with reams of related material likening Obama to Hitler. At the same time, LaRouche’s ersatz political action committee, LPAC, distributed posters to movement followers portraying Obama with a Hitler moustache. According to Jeff Steinberg, a longtime LaRouche cadre who edits the movement’s political journal, Executive Intelligence Review, top LaRouche advisors decided during the congressional debate over the stimulus package to liken Obama’s policies to those of Hitler.

“We went after this thing five months ago and put everything out publicly through our magazine and web sites and decided to make a very harsh and shocking point,” Steinberg told me. “It is our view that there's a lot of people who for pragmatic reasons could be inclined to accept policies that could take us down that slippery slope to Hitler’s policies in 1939.”

When opposition to Obama’s health-care reform proposals intensified this August, mainstream Republican figures began echoing LaRouche’s paranoid warnings. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich and Senator Charles Grassley insisted that Obama’s health-care plan would mandate the creation of “death panels” to determine which Americans would be euthanized. Rush Limbaugh weighed in by comparing Obama to Hitler, who, he said, “also ruled by dictate.”

Most remarkably, Fox News host Sean Hannity introduced a segment of his August 12 broadcast by identifying Ezekiel Emanuel as the intellectual author of the “death panels”—just as Chaitkin had done two months before. Hannity then turned to Ann Coulter, a guest panelist on his show. “Totally ironically,” Coulter quipped, “Zeke Emanuel is on my death list. Hold the applause. I’m going to be on the death panel.”

Not to be outdone, Fox’s Glenn Beck devoted an extended rant on his August 14 show to Ezekiel Emanuel and “the death panels.” Beck accused Emanuel of “the devaluing of human life, putting a price on each individual,” adding, “the death panel is not a firing squad… Rationing is inevitable and they know it!” (Emanuel’s growing identification by leading conservatives with the establishment of death panels prompted him to call the accusations a “fabrication” of his published writings.)

The death panels rumor surfaced again on August 20 when a female LaRouche youth cadre confronted Democratic Rep. Barney Frank at a town hall-style forum on Obama’s health-care proposals. “This is the T4 policy, the Hitler policy in 1939,” the follower shouted into a microphone, “when he said certain lives are not worth living; certain people we should not spend the money to keep them alive—which is exactly what Ezekiel Emanuel has said!”

Waving one of the LaRouche-printed leaflets depicting Obama with a Hitler moustache, the woman asked Frank, “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy?”

While the audience groaned and booed, Frank dismissed the woman with a characteristically sardonic question: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

The incident was replayed by cable news programs on a virtual loop, turning it into a national sensation. However, the coverage invariably failed to answer Frank’s question by reporting that his questioner resided on Planet LaRouche. Washington Post and Daily Beast columnist Kathleen Parker, for example, identified the woman as just one spoke “among America’s squeakier wheels.” Parker might have been right, but by omitting the woman’s political affiliation, the press avoided the more salient story about how the Republican Party co-opted a fringe movement’s propaganda for its talking points in the health-care debate.

“The Republicans had no leadership and no message,” Steinberg remarked. “So they might have picked this [the Obama-Hitler comparisons] up publicly off our website but it’s hard to say. They have certainly begun echoing what we’ve saying for a long time.”

Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and writing fellow at The Nation Institute, whose book, Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books), is forthcoming in Fall 2009. Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.


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August 24, 2009 | 8:44am
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Comments ()

pwerner

Thank you Max for explaining this. Misrepresenting Obama's policies and attitudes is bad enough, but these Hitler comparisons and the defamed pictures of Obama break my heart. What kind of people treat their elected leaders in this fashion. All of the rest of us must fight this and expose the people behind it. Shame on them.

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9:34 am, Aug 24, 2009

motrbotr

pwener,

I agree. Were you saying the same thing during the Bush years with the Hitler, Joker and other defaming pictures the liberals used to throw around?

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1:42 pm, Aug 24, 2009

mike22

Ah, but there's the problem. Bush exhibited an undeniable pattern of anti-democracy, militaristic, ethno-centric, religio-nationalist activities and words. Obama has been militantly pro-democracy and emphasized transcending tribe and ethnic group. Now go look up fascism, go study history, and tell me honestly where the shoe fits. Anybody can throw the fascist label around... fascists better than anybody because of their guilty consciences.

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2:00 pm, Aug 24, 2009

chekov

mike22 is exactly right. Bush essentially stole, with the help of the Supreme Court no less, the election in 2000. It all went to hell after that. I really think that the damage, both psychologically and politically that Cheney/Bush did to the American body politic is almost irreparable at this point.

Good luck to President Obama. He is trying more than any other president to start to mend this huge divide.

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2:14 pm, Aug 24, 2009

contrary55

Hitler and the Joker were too much the evil genius to be compared to Bush. The best one and the most fitting was the Alfred E Newman comparison.

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3:05 pm, Aug 24, 2009

AlanD2

chekov: It is now looking like Bush also stole, with the help of Tom Ridge and strategic bogus terrorist alerts, the 2004 election.

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3:40 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

C'mon motrbotr,
Obama has been militantly pro-democracy, that is why "Black Panthers were stationed outside the Philadelphia polling places, and the prosecution of the voter laws this violated killed by his guy at DOJ.

That is why the ACORN institutional voter fraud is being downplayed and swept under the rug.

And look at the labeling of dissenters who disagree with him. He is so pro-democracy he wants them all labeled at nut-cases or shills. That way their vote being discarded isn't such a big deal.

He will fight for your sons right to vote ( assuming you have a son, and he is a felon)

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4:47 pm, Aug 24, 2009

tehixe

akcita:

You're doing us all a favor. By staging a hysterical freak-out of epic proportions, the entire anti-Obama movement is being painted as lunatics. If there are legitimate arguments against Obama, they're barely getting any press thanks to the ridiculous antics of people like you. The lies and baseless comparisons make for WAY better TV. Every hitler moustache, every gun at a town hall, every single incident diminishes the Republican party and drives more independents to vote Democratic.

Enjoy the political wilderness folks. If you don't shape up and divorce yourselves from unhinged conspiracy theorists like akcita, you'll be there for a long time.

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5:29 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

Wow, ridiculous antics! What have I done now?

I was merely pointing out the fallacy of the pro-democracy comments made earlier with anti-democratic actions that have occurred.

Keep it coming sugar pie, I await your next silly statement with baited breath!

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6:01 pm, Aug 24, 2009

tehixe

Wouldn't it be great if the things that "have ocurred" had actually occurred? Then you wouldn't be spreading lies and/or ignorance, you'd be telling the truth. For instance, the much-reported ACORN voter fraud was actually reported voluntarily by ACORN. They pay their employees per registration, and some of those employees inevitably try to pad their wallets by turning in fake registrations. By law, ACORN has to turn those in and identify them as fraudulent. But the Republicans (and Faux news, and you as well) had no problem in pretending like it was some huge scandal, and not an example of the system working as designed to weed out voter fraud.

As to specific antics, you may notice I said people like you, not you yourself. I don't actually know what your antics are other than spreading lies on TBD, so that comment was probably unfair as far as it was directed at you. But by people like you, I mean right wingers who have no scruples about lying or are too lazy to find real facts. If you're not one of those, then I misjudged, and you'll have to excuse my mistake, but I stand by my comments about the right wing in general.

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7:11 pm, Aug 24, 2009

dana64

BUSH started 2 wars....................and their attitude was totalitarian wanting to establish UNITARIAN PResidency and also the PERMANENT REPUBLICAN MAJORITY
and MIKE22 said it better than me
Actually Obama is too timid to be a dictator.........he aims at bipartisanship is too democratic even for most people's taste.
The Republican party act like BULLIES
the DEMS are too polite...................and weak to be fascist.
BUT LET ME TELL YOU fascism is not 100 % bad............or it would not have been invented.

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11:01 pm, Aug 24, 2009

BullMoose

Don't you know lefty liberals can do as they want , not as they say?
Like this so called blog, run by a bunch of left wing hypocrites.
Left wingers call people assholes and i flag them, but since they are lefties they are not removed.
I voted for Obama, big mistake, came here on the advice of a friend, post a satirical response to Patricia Williams article without cuss words the left uses, and it gets removed, even after the date shows i explained the satire before they removed it.
That woke me up to the same spineless wimps that are Obamamites. But polls show people are seeing through this phoney smooth talking lawyer,and his Healthcare Deform will fail.

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5:28 pm, Aug 26, 2009

dwurry

One Question:

Do you as an American compare our president to Hitler?

Shame on any Republican who does not categorically denounce this!

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12:18 am, Aug 25, 2009

DocT69

As a conservative I agree that this type of hatred is wrong. Where did you stand when Bush was called Hitler and Pelosi's comments about people like me who politely went to these meetings with their representratives) being called swastika carrying mobs? I live in SWPA and during the campaign we were insulted by Obama (guns and religion comment) and Murtha (redneck comment)...still waiting for those apologies and outrage by the left...

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9:41 am, Aug 25, 2009

isabella

It isn't necessary to "misrepresent" his policies.

Obama demonized Chrysler bondholders as "greedy" before canceling their investments. Profitable,family-owned car dealerships established for generations were abruptly put out of business with his approval. Mortgages were rewritten on his instructions and mortgagee banks were ordered not to foreclose on defaulting mortgagors. Bank of America was ordered to purchase ailing Merrill Lynch regardless of shareholders' interests, other banks were bailed out with or without their agreement and yet others were left to fail.

Government intrusion into private contracts, government interference in the operation of shareholder-owned corporations and personal attacks on individuals by presidents or heads of state are hallmarks of dictatorship, whether Fascist or Stalinist.

Now that doctors are an obstacle to his plans to reform health care, President Obama is demonizing them for over-servicing. Doctors have no choice but to order every possible test and procedure or risk being sued for negligence, making lawyers very rich in the process.

Do lawyers earn too much? Will they be the President's next target for public opprobrium and government control? Who will follow?

Dictatorship has a way of creeping up on unsuspecting polities. It rarely begins with uniformed, armed militias and in recent history it has more than once been ushered in by success at the ballot box.






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1:51 pm, Aug 25, 2009

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2:15 pm, Aug 25, 2009

isabella

"eeasyrider

Nice try, isabella. If Obama had done nothing, your precious bondholders would have lost everything.
Doctors are not an obstacle to health care reform. You are making things up about overservicing. Doctors want to be more informed about patient tests so they don't repeat them multiple times. Seems like a good idea, don't you think? Could say some money for tax payers.
Oh and now you are conserned about lawyers? Aren't republicans screaming about tort reform. Like I said, nice try, isabella. But you are either uninformed or you love to make stuff up."


To easyrider: Your post is nonsense.

If Obama had done nothing, bondholders would have been among the first creditors paid from the sale of assets of the bankrupt company.

I notice you did not address the problem of presidents and dictators singling out individuals for public censure.

Overservicing by doctors does not mean "repeating tests multiple times". It means following every symptom, no matter how vague, to exclusion, and performing every procedure that could possibly, even remotely, yield information or relief. It will certainly save money if a bureaucrat decides how many and which tests and procedures will be performed on you. Please write again when you have symptoms that might indicate Multiple Myeloma.

I am no more concerned about lawyers' income than doctors' or that of any other group. My concern is the behavior of governments to their citizens and the use of state power to intimidate and silence opposition.

If Obama wants healthcare reform he will have to first reform the law of medical negligence.

When your Multiple Myeloma has gone undiagnosed, you are dying when you find out, but you want treatment that will delay the fateful day AND you want to sue your physician, you'd better hope that Obama hasn't obtained universal, single payer healthcare OR capped damages.

If the first, you won't live long enough to sue. If the second, even if you do file suit, you will get so little it won't pay for your funeral.

I am not a Republican.

President Obama is well-known for accusing people of "making stuff up" when he has no answers. You have no answers either but you could at least try to be original.

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7:46 pm, Aug 25, 2009

CommonSentz

Isabella, you may want to go back and check your timeline. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in 2008 under BUSHES watch. Remember Hank Paulson, Bush's Treasury Secy?

And Chrysler was owned at the time by Cerebrus, a private equity company that took taxpayer money to try and bail our THEIR bad investment rather than spend their own money. Talk about gall!

Nice try, but us people who actually read, check facts and have memories are not going to be fooled by such unsubstantiated posts.

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7:53 pm, Aug 25, 2009

DD3075

EXCELLENT post isabella.

After I had read the first half dozen posts or so, I was sitting here with my mouth open, unable to believe the volume of naive statements.

eeasyrider's response to you tells me he is not an investor. You have to have some comprehension of stocks and bonds, in order to grasp the impact of Obama's actions.

Those who fail to see it, I believe do so unintentionally. The only people that Obama is capable of convincing that everything he does is for them, are those Americans who will follow blindly, and then awaken one day to face their error smack in the face.

When you put your complete trust and faith in someone, that is how you get taken. And what I continually see in these posts, are Obama supporters UNWILLING to question anything that's going on. Instead of questioning the actions/errors of those "in power", they seem to find safety in simply demeaning those who will question.

I believe that many are unable to view the ramifications, because they don't grasp the fundamentals. It's like they don't understand that mixing a bunch of ingredients together can give you either a chocolate cake or chocolate pudding. Both may be chocolate, but the end results are very different.

I learned today that the Apollo Alliance designed our stimulus package; the one that took trillions of our tax dollars, supposedly for jobs,etc., but has not given us any jobs. For those who don't know, AA is headed by avowed communists. So ASK yourselves why were they chosen to have ANY input into America's economy. Could it be that the intention is, and always was, to cause our once strong economy to implode?

Stop blindly following folks, and start asking questions.

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9:55 pm, Aug 25, 2009

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10:59 am, Aug 26, 2009

BullMoose

Obama action or inaction is irrelevant to my Fildeltiy mutual fund. And my Roth IRA is doing just fine. I hope everthing this lying mobster Obama fails.
He even has his own far left loonies mad, because he is sending more troops to Afghanistan. That hypocrite is a joke.

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5:31 pm, Aug 26, 2009

SCMax101

Wow. This was interesting and something I didn't know, not to mention terrifying.

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9:36 am, Aug 24, 2009

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12:05 pm, Aug 24, 2009

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2:06 pm, Aug 24, 2009

BullMoose

Don't forget Paul Krugman,Frank Rich, Tom Teepen, Mike Malloy, and i'm sure others who see through the onion layers the right set up under the tutelage of Lee Atwater.

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3:05 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

What is truly interesting is the fact that facts are largely ignored. Most of the argument is an ad hominem piece saying that the LaRouche is a nut therefore there is no basis to the fears being voiced by the various people. This is an invalid argument.

Blumenthal is essentially being a propaganda tool himself in this approach.

He would do better to deconstruct the argument and demonstrate how the program saves lives rather than causes older people to be denied expensive life extending treatments.

Unfortunately the latter requires serious reseach and empirical evidence ( lots of work), so Max chose the ad hominem attack route instead.


OBTW, he mistates that the LaRouche "Planet" was not mentioned during the cable coverage of Barney Frank. The woman in the video clearly referenced LaRouche in the course of her question" That's when I started adding the grains of salt...too bad Blumenthal is a lazy reporter.

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3:40 pm, Aug 24, 2009

reardongalt

Easyrider, you just listed the Who's Who of leftist loons,and a sports announcer, a comedian, and a foreigner who still choses not to learn how to speak English. You defeated your own argument so brilliantly, I would be hard pressed to improve on it.

Alan, I have a newsflash for you. Bush won in 2000 before, after and including about 10 recounts.

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4:19 pm, Aug 24, 2009

ncopas

aaahhh, reardongalt, i was waiting for the obligatory gop/douchebag backlash. Exactly what i expected, way to uphold the values of your party, with the usual mudslinging, racism, delusion, and blind arrogance.
..and you shouldn't have used the word "newsflash," instead something like "fabricated lie" or "FOX newsflash" would have been more appropriate when describing the "recounts" of 2000... :)

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4:45 pm, Aug 24, 2009

AlanD2

reardongalt: I have a newsflash for you. The only vote that was won by George W. Bush in 2000 was in the Supreme Court.

The initial Florida recount was broken up by protesters. Remarkably, these protesters were actually GOP staffers flown in from Washington.

By the time this mess had been cleaned up, Republicans had forced the issue up to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Florida Supreme Court had by then ordered a recount of the entire state.)

The Supreme Court. elected Bush by a 5-4 vote, with all of the majority being conservative judges. (I don't recall any Republicans complaining about their judicial activism, either.)

Contrary to the numbers you dreamed up, not one single official recount was ever completed in Florida. However, several news organizations later made their own recount:

"According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida's highest court.

"On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide."

So the truth is we will never know who really won in Florida. The Supreme Court, butterfly ballots, the illegal purging of voter rolls, and the candidacy of Ralph Nader (conveniently funded by Republicans) ensured this.

By the way, why bother lying in these threads when it is so easy for people like me to find the facts and refute you?

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6:30 pm, Aug 24, 2009

BullMoose

Bush won in 2000? What a good belly laugh to start th day. Cruella DeVille aka Katherine Harris, Airhead Queen, helped the Cubans in Miami-Dade steal their share of votes, and we all know the Jewish voters voted for Pat Buchanan. Some people , usually inheritance or rich off illegal immigrant labor, just like the fact Shrub would steal more from payroll taxes, money the real producers create, and give it to them.
Diebold, as an E mail from their executive stated, gave Ohio to Shrub in 04.
But thank Shrub for ruining our country. His accomplishment was remarkable, destroying a system that had survived over 200 years, destroyed in 8 years. Hats off to the war mongering, Bible prostituting, draft dodging drunk.

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10:40 am, Aug 25, 2009

connie47

We need to bring a big bright light to shine on this story. Those who have just picked up the mantra need to know the kind of evil with which they're associating. Thanks for the article, Max.

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9:59 am, Aug 24, 2009

sophia5

Can we stop with the comparisons to Hitler already ?
He was a monster.

Far Right Kooks comparing Obama to Hitler,
are not unlike Far Left whackos who compared Bush to Hitler.

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10:03 am, Aug 24, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--Yurdelite
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11:09 am, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

The irony is actually making me giggle. My laughter is only tempered by te knowledge that Mr. Obama probably has quite a few more bites allowed on the hand that gave him the Presidency (the Media), before they turn on him for real.

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4:37 pm, Aug 24, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--Yurdelite
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5:46 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

You are confusing support and getting page views and viewers.

You are in denial if you think that the media didn't softball for Obama for the entire election.

They are now reporting on things in order to get readers, sorry but it is a business after all. They do cut him slack, his press secretary is a complete rube who is getting away with "screw you media" comments all the time.

There are only a few who are willing to pressure him the way a reporter should pressure a public official who is peddling BS.

The liberal editors gave him a pass. It was obvious to everyone, except you of course.

How else would law designed to subsidize the news papers sprout after the election. wake up hon'.

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6:08 pm, Aug 24, 2009

Ritarita

You couldn't
Get into a Bush
Townhall meetin if you
HAD THE WRONG TEE SHIRT ON
Sophia-
Let's get real.
Bush didn't truck any comparisons.
Put up some proof.

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11:21 am, Aug 24, 2009

AlanD2

The wrong t-shirt?

You couldn't get in unless you signed a loyalty oath.

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3:42 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

Rita,

Please, the Obama townhalls are held in hangers on remote areas (of Montana airports in one case) and well choreographed with supporters, and protesters well away from the central forum. There has to be some control over the folks who are walking in the same room with the President. I guess the real issue is how much ideological control is there?

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4:02 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

RIta, the joker photo was an idea that was made over on Obama from an earlier Bush themed version. You act as if no dissent was allowed at all. BTW, where did Cindy Sheehan go all of a sudden? Did she lose her Dem bank roll?

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4:05 pm, Aug 24, 2009

ncopas

This response
Could be so
Much shorter
If I'd just
Typed it like a
Normal sentence,
But unfortunately for me,
This is all I know
How to do,
I wish I was a poet...
And I wish I knew
the first thing about politics

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4:49 pm, Aug 24, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--nightdragon83
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6:07 pm, Aug 24, 2009

AlanD2

akcita: Obama used the hanger in Montana because there wasn't another building in town that was big enough for the expected crowds.

While he was indeed separated from the bulk of supporters and protesters, he was also separated from potential assassins. Like those assault-rifle-carrying protesters in Arizona.

As I remember, aside from reservations for some of his supporters and for Montana politicians, the bulk of the seats were available to everybody. According to one local report, "Obama's town hall organizers provided about 850 general-admission tickets to the public for free, while distributing several hundred more tickets through private channels to Democratic Party loyalists and wealthy donors."

This doesn't sound like any ideological control here. Contrast this with Bush, who generally restricted attendance at his town hall meetings to Republicans.

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6:11 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

Al, there were 700 first come first serve tickets out of 1300 distributed at the town hall. Who got these? No real accounting of them as far as I have heard.

Regarding the venue, spare me the only building nonsense. These venues are planned by White House Staff and the Secret Service. Town Halls happen in all the states. I guess this podunk in Montana doesn't have a high school or a gymnasium? BS. These can be secured as well as any of the many similar facilities the President visits all the time.

My point is this, both of these guys limit external protesters in these staged events. They are trying to focus a message.

You all are trying to say one is worse than the other for it, and I'm not.

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1:18 pm, Aug 25, 2009

AlanD2

akcita: I agree that both of these guys limit external protesters in these staged events. This has to be done for security, if nothing else.

But inside? Bush limited attendees to his events in many ways, doing his best to eliminate anyone who might be a protester. I never saw Bush taking spontaneous questions from the audience, as we have seen Obama do at his town hall meetings.

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5:57 pm, Aug 25, 2009

AlanD2

akcita: Cindy Sheehan has her own radio show, "Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox".

She is also plans to be at a protest this week in Martha's Vineyard, where President Obama is vacationing.

I suspect she's doing better than you are...

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6:02 pm, Aug 25, 2009

ElLamer

I can imagine that with some of the torture stuff people might liken bush to hitler but I find that unfair, first of all it was the VP who did most of the dirty stuff and second, these mindless comparisons like: this guy who I know little about is like that other guy who I know little about, are just plain dumb.

Why does it really matter if some idiots on the left went into crazy comparison land? RIght now its the right and its bad for our country. Anyone truly patriotic should be against it whichever side it comes from.

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12:02 pm, Aug 24, 2009

reardongalt

Let's at least get one thing straight: Hitler was a Leftist. You know, the side of the political spectrum that likes things like Socialized Medicine.

Hmmmm.

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6:24 pm, Aug 24, 2009

marietheinformed

It is always funny to me when people compare the verbal abuse of Bush with that of Obama. People who criticized Bush couldn't even wear an anti Bush t-shirt in his majesty's presence, and I didn't see open gun toters at Bush events. This country has a not too distant history of open violence and death against people of color. That's the missing component in all of these Bush-Obama comparisons. A huge missing component.

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9:41 pm, Aug 24, 2009

BullMoose

I do remember signs on the marquee of churches in PN that read, Vote for Jesus. Vote Bush.
Guess God wanted Obama, since he won fair and square, without a 1 vote Supreme Court decision. Vince Bugliosi's book on the stolen election hit the nail on the head.
But i do hope the right wins back both Houses of Congress in 2010, and Obama loses in 2012. After voting for Obama,then seeing the attitude of the crybabys who can't take a joke,the Obama supporters here, i could not care less. I am set for life, so you crybaby's fend for yourselves and eat crow when the Republicans get power restored to their far right agenda.The blog of a board that let's the right post all things vile, but removes satire they are too stupid to comprehend. Journalism died with the advent of this blog garbage.

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10:51 am, Aug 25, 2009

crngndmhm

LOL @ BullMoose
Oh no what will we do without you to protect us. It seems the babies aren't the only ones crying here. Maybe if you were a little more eloquent in your writing it would actually seem to be satire.

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8:47 am, Aug 26, 2009

BullMoose

crngdnmwhatever First you need a brain, of which you are devoid of to discern satire. Time flies and i can't wait to rub in the Republicans retaking of Congress, then the Presidency in 2012. I take you Tina Brownites with a grain of salt.

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5:37 pm, Aug 26, 2009

oliverckerr

Lyndon Larouche is alive? Still out there? I recollect the Larouche fanatics with their tables set up in the airports.

Nobody bothered to identify the fair skinned woman who waved the moustchioed Obama picture at the Barney Frank town hall. This is excellent reporting.

Hats off to Max!

michaelslevinson dot commie

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10:03 am, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

She referenced LaRouche in her diatribe...excellent reporting of erroneous info.

go to 1:06 if you just want to hear her reference Larouche.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjF4YjvJLe4

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4:11 pm, Aug 24, 2009

LanceRH

I'm actually a great fan of the Hitler comparisons - but only because of how counter-productive they are. Those who deserve no credibility are standing up and demanding not to be taken seriously by anyone with a glimmer of a mind.

It's karmic poetry and evolution at its finest.

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10:10 am, Aug 24, 2009

ncopas

hah, well-said

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4:50 pm, Aug 24, 2009

KateTheGreat

Well written article. I would have liked to have known the crazy "Nazi policy" protester's political affiliations last week when she was plastered across the Boob-Tube 24/7, but better late than never. Thanks!

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10:13 am, Aug 24, 2009

xlntcat

I thought that she was just a crack addicted woman of ill repute who hadn't bothered to read over her Freedom Works script and was clueless about where she was or with whom she was speaking. I was sure that she wasn't a constituent that was going to be showing up at the local grocery with the individuals she had so deeply offended.

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12:51 pm, Aug 24, 2009

bobzaguy

So she was then, a crack-addicted woman of ill repute, clueless about the where and the whom, AND a LaRouchie. That's pretty good, xlntcat, 2 out of 3 is very good.

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4:29 pm, Aug 24, 2009

BullMoose

Sounds like 2 crack addicts talking about each other.

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2:21 pm, Aug 31, 2009

Wallysmom

Interesting article. More interesting is the lack of the usual comments here that attack Obama and his Presidency. Perhaps because the facts are so painful.

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10:16 am, Aug 24, 2009

jscott

Hmm, the RWNM at work using Fox News sloppy protocols at sourcing their propoganda and yet the MSM hasn't reported that the GOP is using stuff from a fringe right wing group....

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10:48 am, Aug 24, 2009

jrldev

La Rouche is well known in the political theatre as an extremist and anything he does reflects and validate those views. The surprise news is that the NYT this week-end did
a piece announcing that the seniors will be the group that
will be "theoretically" eliminated for health care under the
current "reform bill" pending house and senate approval.

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10:51 am, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

put the link up. I'd love to see what senior citizens are unhappy about and the basis for those fears. Everyone else here wants to focus on LaRouche rather than the justifiable fears that seniors have in losing health care.

The Hitler rhetoric is bullcrap. Unfortunately it is being used by both sides to highlight AND divert attention from the real painful issues that need to be discussed. Too bad folks on this site can't figure out that if you defund medicare and take away treatment, some old people die.

Some might give a damn if they have an elder parent, otherwise forget about it until your parents are old enough to be impacted. Of course, by then it will be too late.

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4:20 pm, Aug 24, 2009

bobzaguy

maybe you didn't notice the part about Medicare?
We seniors (over 65) have the premium deducted each month from our SS checks for our Medicare health care coverage. This is the coverage that even the wackos at the Town Hall meetings don't want the government to mess with.
In that effect, we are therefore, as a group, "eliminated" from having to go out and find insurance. We get it automatically. We are covered.
Surprise! Surprise! jrldev.

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4:36 pm, Aug 24, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--Yurdelite
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5:53 pm, Aug 24, 2009

VinnyB

The comparisons to Hitler are horrible and unjust, however, where was the outrage when the same remarks were hurled at Bush? I'm no cheerleader for Bush, but what's good for the goose ................................

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10:59 am, Aug 24, 2009

reardongalt

Right. There's far more vitriol on the Left than on the right. Plus it gets under their skin more....HA!

Hey, you want to know how you can tell what the Left is doing to the Public? Just listen to what they accuse the Right of. They "project" their evils. It's quite fascinating. Example, if they accuse the Republicans of trying to steal an election, it's because THEY STEAL ELECTIONS all the time. That's what happened in 2000. They went down there to Florida to steal the election, but when it didn't work they said, "hey that's not fair, you guys stole the election." Just like 12 year olds.

Another example is when Pelosi accused the protesters of "astroturf". Hell, the Left invented it.

Another example is when MSNBC called the Tea Party protesters "teabaggers". Now, I've lived my whole life, and I never heard of that word, and yet Maddow, Schuster, and Anderson were all quite familiar with the word. Hmmm, could it be.......

Ah yes, you gotta love it. Just listed to what they accuse other of to find out what they're doing.

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6:39 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

It was surprising to see a term that has blatant sexual connotations thrown out so casually. I cringe at the thought of more such rhetorical gifts from liberal commentators. Will the lexicon of the pornography industry now become the norm for political discourse?

Unbelievable.

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1:23 pm, Aug 25, 2009

DD3075

What you say is so true. It happens all the time on these posting sites. I particularly love the way that anything critical of Obama is countered by a response that essentially says "Well Bush did the same thing."

Why the libs spend so much time comparing Obama, to someone they hate, tells me that Obama's actions cannot stand on their own. In addition, if everything that Obama does, was also done by Bush, and the libs hated what Bush did, then one can conclude that the libs also hate what Obama is doing.

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11:22 pm, Aug 25, 2009

bevgrey

When the movement first started, they were calling themselves teabaggers. I heard it on TV and saw it in the papers The term changed to Tea Party in a very short amount of time.. I only learned recently that it has sexual connotations. I've asked a few people and they didn't know either. I guess they're not as blatant as Akita states, since the original members of the groups were using it for a while.

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9:39 am, Aug 26, 2009

davidblaine

The fact that you do not know what "tea-bagging" is and used that as your slogan w/out doing any research...just shows that you live under a rock. Don't blame others for what you do not know.

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5:33 pm, Aug 26, 2009

reardongalt

david, that's one of the silliest things I've ever heard someone say. Don't you think it makes more sense to know what a tea party is? The Boston Tea Party was fundamental to the founding of our country.

It makes much more sense to question the integrity (and sexual behaviour for that matter) of what's supposed to be mainstream news anchors and reporters who use the term in derogatory manner while they are addressing it at Granny and Granpa?

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6:42 pm, Aug 26, 2009

Dissention

I've gotten into it at a few message boards with GOPers who try to claim that these people are actually Democrats! Up is down, left is right; that's their thinking on any and everything.

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11:00 am, Aug 24, 2009

This user is no longer registered.

n--Y--Yurdelite
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11:12 am, Aug 24, 2009

North49

Would you be happier if the poster was one of Robert Mugabe? Would that be a more accurate depiction of President Obama?

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9:44 pm, Aug 24, 2009

tina78

Where was all the outrage when we found out there was no WMD's at all in IRAQ? We have our son's & daughters mother and fathers and some cases grandparents dying over a LIE..............We as a country need to wake up. I want one senator or congress person with NO INSURANCE to go to any ER with a serious problem and see how they will be treated....I work for the goverment and they pick our insurance and we have no say in the matter. As well as if you work for any company or if you have Medicaid or Medicare........all government run...........Fake outrage........It is about having a Black President that you don't want in office and want to fail at any cost............That is what all this rowdy behavior at the Town hall are all about...........

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11:16 am, Aug 24, 2009

roadhunter

The outrage was everywhere. Where were you? Even though Hussein did all he could to convince the world he did have these weapons, when it was discovered that he did not, Bush's approval ratings declined. This has been weekly news for years.

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12:49 pm, Aug 24, 2009

ncopas

Yea the outrage was everywhere, but it's sad cuz what can you really do? I thought the president should have been impeached, he committed a serious crime. But what am I gonna do, sue him?
When a powerful leader doesn't really care whether his people hate him for lying to them, he removes from himself any need to be vindicated. I kinda interpreted bush's attitude as "yea, I lied. What are you people gonna do?"

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5:05 pm, Aug 24, 2009

akcita

If the president makes a statement that turns out to be erroneous, is it a lie?

If so, just about every President is a bald-faced liar...I guess you may be right indeed...

BTW, if the outrage is fake, I guess there is no reason for a change?

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4:25 pm, Aug 24, 2009

flyoverland

These are the same people who compared Bush to Hitler. Ignore them,

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11:16 am, Aug 24, 2009

AlanD2

flyoverland: You do, of course, have sources to confirm your statement?

I await them with bated breath.

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3:47 pm, Aug 24, 2009

ncopas

Right. cuz having sources for that would, like, totally be possible!

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5:07 pm, Aug 24, 2009

Speagle


It's "baited" breath. You need Scope.

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12:26 pm, Aug 25, 2009

AlanD2

Speagle: Actually, "bated" is considered correct, even though you often see "baited" used instead.

Google it for yourself. Have fun!

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5:52 pm, Aug 25, 2009

BullMoose

speagle You did not know AlanD2 is the head lefty here besides Tina Brown's extreme left leaning brain?
He follows me around , like some other lefty i don't bother to remember, but their silliness runs off like water over a duck's back.
As for his google comment, they are not God. leave that for Tina Brown. The old i before e except after c is now being accepted either way, because it was never written in stone to be correct anyway.
speagle Sorry he is stalking you, but at least it eats his time, and i can post without his , well whatever it is he says, since i do not read then except when he attacks others and i forget to see who it is. He really has no life.

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4:58 pm, Aug 27, 2009
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Behind the Obama-Hitler Slur

by Max Blumenthal

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