The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), marks the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a Nazi rampage through the Jewish communities of Germany in 1938, by depicting Dartmouth College president James Freedman as Adolf Hitler on its front cover. Freedman is Jewish. The article accuses him of searching for a “final solution” to the problem of conservatives at Dartmouth, a specific reference to the Holocaust. Many Dartmouth students and faculty members accuse the Review of overt anti-Semitism (see October 1982 and October 4, 1990). The Review will later apologize, not to Freedman, but to those who might have been offended. [Boston Globe, 10/5/1990; Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006]

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, in his book See, I Told You So, argues that Republicans cannot depend on a negative, anti-liberal frame in which to draw their arguments. “We are not a party of people connected together by bonds of negativity,” he writes. “We are a party of ideas—positive ideas.” He lists some of what he considers the guiding principles of Republican thought: “We must perceive and sell ourselves: Not as the party that opposes government, but that which champions individual freedoms; Not as the party that opposes higher taxes, but that which champions entrepeneurship; Not as the party that opposes abortion, but that which champions every form of human life as the most sacred of God’s creatures; Not as the party that opposes the expansion of the welfare state, but that which champions rugged individualism.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 59-60]

John Derbyshire. [Source: John Derbyshire]National Review columnist John Derbyshire “satirically” advocates the murder of Chelsea Clinton, the only daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, in order to stamp out the Clinton bloodline once and for all. Former President Clinton has left the White House, to spend the rest of his life “goosing waitresses [and] defending himself in court.” Hillary “has no future beyond the US Senate… [she is] maxed out.” But, he warns, “Clintonism may yet rise again.… On February 27th, Chelsea Clinton will turn 21.” 'I Hate Chelsea Clinton' - Derbyshire confesses: “I hate Chelsea Clinton. I admit it’s not easy to justify my loathing of this person. I can pick out causes, but none of them is one hundred per cent rational.… I admit, I hate Chelsea because she is a Clinton.” After noting the negative reactions to his previous attack on the younger Clinton’s physical appearance, he acknowledges that she hasn’t committed the “array of crimes” her father is allegedly responsible for, but “she doesn’t deserve any credit for not having done these things; she just hasn’t had time yet.” He writes that since she was 18, she has “sign[ed] on to the Great Clinton Project. Which is, has always been, and forever will be, to enrich the family from the public fisc, and to lie, bomb, bribe, and intimidate your way out of trouble when necessary.” 'Sippenhaft' - Derbyshire notes that in totalitarian societies of the past, many people were executed merely because of their family connections, and says the same should be considered for Chelsea Clinton. “Chelsea is a Clinton,” he writes. “She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past—I’m not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble—recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin’s penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an ‘enemy of the people.’ The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, ‘clan liability.’ In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished ‘to the ninth degree’: that is, everyone in the offender’s own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed.… We don’t, of course, institutionalize such principles in our society, and a good thing too. Our humanity and forbearance, however, has a cost. The cost is that the vile genetic inheritance of Bill and Hillary Clinton may live on to plague us in the future. It isn’t over, folks.” [National Review, 2/15/2001]'Hysterical Idiots' - After a week of angry criticism, Derbyshire will write a column defending his original column as “satire,” blaming “liberals” for “missing the joke,” and admitting his column “wasn’t meant to be a thigh-slapper. I had a point to make: There could be another Clinton in our future, and on present evidence (admittedly rather scant), it would be a chip off the old block. That’s fair comment. However, my tone was partly tongue in cheek.… Humor and irony are especially tricky.” He asks, rhetorically, if he intends to apologize, and answers himself: “In your dreams. I make it a point of principle never to apologize to hysterical idiots.” [National Review, 2/22/2001]

DVD cover illustration of the film ‘Soldiers in the Army of God.’ [Source: HBO / St. Pete for Peace]Cable movie provider HBO airs a documentary, Soldiers in the Army of God, focusing on the violent anti-abortion movement (see 1982, Early 1980s, August 1982, and July 1988) and three of its leaders. National Public Radio airs a profile of the documentary, featuring an interview with the film’s producers, Marc Levin, Daphne Pinkerson, and Daniel Voll. According to Voll, the film focuses on three members of the “Army of God”: young recruit Jonathan O’Toole, who says he was looking for the most “radical” and “terroristic” anti-abortion group he could find; Neal Horsley, who runs an anti-abortion Web site; and long-haul trucker Bob Lokey, who recruits new members. 'Violent Fringe' of Anti-Abortion Opposition - Voll describes the three as part of the “violent fringe” of anti-abortion opposition: “These are the guys on the ground who are—whatever the words that politicians and other leaders of these cultural wars can put out there, these are the men who hear them and feel emboldened by them, who feel encouraged by each other, and they are every day praying for God’s will in their life.” Another unidentified man says: “Anybody who raises a weapon up against these people who are slaughtering these babies, before God and the entire world, right now I say you are doing God’s own work. And may the power of God be with you as you aim that rifle. You’re squeezing that trigger for Almighty God.” In the documentary, an unidentified anti-abortion activist says: “There are people in this world right now who are looking for directions on what do we do. Well, we end abortion on demand by the most direct means available to us. So stop the abortion with a bullet, if that’s what it takes. Stop it with a bomb, if that’ s what it takes. You stop abortion on demand. Don’t let it go any farther.” O’Toole says that the “next step is to arm ourselves in a militia, a real militia that has the power to resist the federal government.” Pinkerson says that O’Toole, who was 19 when he joined the Army of God, found Horsley on the Internet through Horsley’s Web site, “The Nuremberg Files,” which lists doctors who perform abortions (see January 1997). O’Toole became Horsley’s assistant, and through him met Lokey, who runs a Web site called “Save the Babies.” In the film, O’Toole, whom the producers speculate may eventually become an assassin of abortion providers, says that because of America’s legalization of abortion, the country has become like “Nazi Germany. It’s like you’ve got concentration camps around you.” Levin notes that filmed conversations between Horsley and Lokey show that many in the movement feel threatened by the concept of women’s equality, and blame men’s failure to exert “dominion” over women as part of the reason why the US legalized abortion. [National Public Radio, 3/30/2001; Womens eNews, 3/30/2001]Opposition to Homosexuality - Horsley draws a connection between the organization’s opposition to abortion and the American citizenry’s supposed opposition to homosexuality, saying: “If the American people woke up, and realized that they had to choose between legalized abortion, legalized homosexuality, and legalized all the rest of the desecration or civil war which would cause the rivers to run red with blood—hey, you know we will see legalized abortion go like that! We’ll see legalized homosexuality go like that! Because the American people are not willing to die for homosexuals.” Bringing Bomb-Making Materials to Washington - The film also shows Lokey bragging to convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray (see September 1994) that he has just trucked 45,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a substance that can be used to make “fertilizer bombs” similar to the one that destroyed an Oklahoma City federal building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), into Washington, DC. Anti-Abortion Opposition Part of an 'Apocalyptic' Death Struggle - Author and reporter Frederick Clarkson writes: “At once shocking, compelling, and beautifully made, the film is essentially the national television debut for the aboveground spokesmen and spokeswomen of the Army of God.… Horsley and others are quite clear in their public statements and their writings that the attacks on clinics and the murders of doctors are but warning shots in what they envision as an epochal, even an apocalyptic struggle at hand. Either Americans conform to their view of God’s laws, or there will be a blood bath, they say. And there is no evidence that they are anything but dead serious.” [Womens eNews, 3/30/2001]

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) takes to the floor of the House to praise conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. In his “Tribute to Rush Limbaugh,” DeLay says of Limbaugh’s role in the Republican’s capture of the House in 1994, “[He] did not take his direction from us, he was the standard by which we ran. [He] was setting the standard for conservative thought.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 46]

George Will. [Source: Washington Policy Group]Conservative columnist George Will calls two anti-war House Democrats “American collaborators” working with Saddam Hussein, either implicitly or directly. Will singles out Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA) and David Bonior (D-MI) for criticism because of their opposition to the impending Iraq invasion. Will compares the two to World War II propaganda maven William Joyce, the British citizen who earned the sobriquet “Lord Haw Haw” for his pro-Nazi diatribes on the radio, and goes on to observe that McDermott and Bonior provided a spectacle unseen by Americans “since Jane Fonda posed for photographers at a Hanoi anti-aircraft gun” during the Vietnam War. McDermott and Bonior became a target for Will’s wrath by saying they doubted the Bush administration’s veracity in its assertions that Iraq has large stashes of WMD, but believed Iraqi officials’ promises to allow UN inspectors free rein to look for such weapons caches. “I think you have to take the Iraqis on their value—at face value,” McDermott told reporters in recent days, but went on to say, “I think the president [Bush] would mislead the American people.” Leninist 'Useful Idiots' - After comparing the two to Joyce and Fonda, Will extends his comparison to Bolshevik Russia, writing: “McDermott and Bonior are two specimens of what Lenin, referring to Westerners who denied the existence of Lenin’s police-state terror, called ‘useful idiots.’” Will also adds UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in this last category, compares Annan with British “appeaser” Neville Chamberlain for good measure, and labels him “Saddam’s servant.” Slamming Democrats for Not Supporting War - Will saves the bulk of his ire for the accusations by McDermott and Bonior that Bush officials might be lying or misrepresenting the threat of Iraqi WMD, and adds former Vice President Al Gore to the mix. “McDermott’s accusation that the president—presumably with Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, and others as accomplices—would use deceit to satisfy his craving to send young Americans into an unnecessary war is a slander licensed six days earlier by Al Gore,” Will writes. Extending his comparisons to the Watergate era, Will adds, “With transparent Nixonian trickiness—being transparent, it tricks no one—Gore all but said the president is orchestrating war policy for political gain in November.” Will accuses Gore and other Democrats of what he calls “moral infantilism” because they voted to support the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998). Will returns to his complaints about the Democratic congressmen in his conclusion: “McDermott’s and Bonior’s espousal of Saddam’s line, and of Gore’s subtext (and Barbra Streisand’s libretto), signals the recrudescence of the dogmatic distrust of US power that virtually disqualified the Democratic Party from presidential politics for a generation. It gives the benefits of all doubts to America’s enemies and reduces policy debates to accusations about the motives of Americans who would project US power in the world. Conservative isolationism—America is too good for the world—is long dead. Liberal isolationism—the world is too good for America—is flourishing.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2002]

In a PBS interview, Republican marketing guru Richard Viguerie says of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh: “In 1993 and 1994, he was the salvation of the conservative movement. Every day Rush Limbaugh would give us our marching orders, if you would.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 46]

Cover of ‘The Shadow Party.’ [Source: Brazos Bookstore]Authors David Horowitz and Richard Poe publish a book titled The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, that purports to prove Jewish billionaire George Soros, who finances progressive and Democratic Party causes, is in reality a Nazi collaborator and anti-Semite. However, the book is riddled with doctored quotes, misinformation, factual errors, and outright lies. Progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters notes that the book relies on long-discredited accusations from the authors’ “Front Page Magazine” Web site, from their articles on conservative Web publications such as WorldNetDaily and NewsMax, and on unsourced allegations from political extremist Lyndon LaRouche and his followers, who have called Soros a “Nazi beast-man” and a “small cog in Adolf Eichmann’s killing machine,” aiding “the Holocaust against 500,000 Hungarian Jews.” Media Matters calls the book “a new low in the long-running Republican Party and conservative movement campaign of scurrilous personal attacks against Soros, a major supporter of progressive causes in the US and abroad.” The organization also notes that the Web sites used in the book’s research are largely funded by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, and Scaife-owned newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have promoted the book. Media Matters documents numerous issues of doctored quotes and falsified claims in the book. [Media Matters, 8/2/2006]

Martin Peretz, the editor in chief of The New Republic, falsely accuses Jewish billionaire George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator. Soros is now a target of conservative opprobrium for his financial support of Democratic and progressive causes. As a 14-year-old boy, Soros escaped from the Nazis by hiding with a non-Jewish family in Hungary; the father of that family sometimes served deportation notices to Hungarian Jews. Peretz now calls Soros “a young cog in the Hitlerite wheel.” The progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters notes that Peretz is following the lead of right-wing extremists David Horowitz and Richard Poe, whose book The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party claimed that Soros “survived [the Holocaust] by assimilating to Nazism.” The book was found to be riddled with doctored quotes and factual errors (see August 8, 2006). Peretz uses a transcript of a 1998 interview Soros gave to 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft to prove his claim, but edits the transcript to leave out a key section that shows Soros did not collaborate with Nazis. [Media Matters, 2/5/2007; New Republic, 2/12/2007] (The article is dated February 12, 2007, but was posted on the New Republic Web site a week earlier.)

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, in another of his now-famous broadsides against feminists (whom he routinely calls “femi-Nazis” and characterizes as “anti-male”), says: “I blast feminists because they’re liberal. Feminism is liberal. It screwed women up as I was coming of age in my early twenties.… It changed naturally designed roles and behaviors and basically, they’re trying to change human nature, which they can’t do.” Limbaugh’s “Life Truth No. 24” states that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to society.” Authors Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, in their book Echo Chamber, will note, “There is apparently no comparable movement to facilitate the social integration of unattractive men.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 103]

As reported by progressive media watchdog site Media Matters, conservative radio host Michael Savage says of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, “I think he was hand-picked by some very powerful forces both within and outside the United State of America to drag this country into a hell that it has not seen since the Civil War of the middle of the 19th century.” Savage is referring to controversial statements made by Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whom Savage calls “the soul of Barack Obama’s movement.” Savage goes on to claim that Wright, and by extension Obama, align themselves with historical enemies of the United States: “And if you want a man who says not ‘God bless America,’ but ‘God d_mn America,’ if you want a man who takes the side of the imperial Japanese army, an army that killed not only hundreds of thousands in the Bataan Death March, but hundreds of thousand of Koreans, an army that operated on people while they were alive in Manchuria, a man who takes the side, in essence, of the Japanese Nazis of World War II, if you want a man who takes the side, in essence, of the Hitlers of the world, then you’ve got it in Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, of the Trinity United Church of Christ.” Obama is merely “an ordinary apparatchik of the Democrat machine in Chicago” whose handlers intend to use Obama to bring upheaval and chaos to the nation. [Media Matters, 3/19/2008]

The cover of Jamieson and Cappella’s ‘Echo Chamber.’ [Source: Barnes and Noble (.com)]Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, authors of the media study Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment, find that conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh excels at using what they call “insider language” for his listeners “that both embeds definitional assumptions hospitable to his conservative philosophy and makes it difficult for those who embrace the language to speak about Democrats and the presumed Democratic ideology without attacking them.” They cite three examples from Limbaugh’s June 2005 newsletter which contains the following statements: “Democrats are the enemy.” “When she first ran for her Senate seat, Hillary Rodham Clinton told citizens of the Empire State [New York] that she had been endorsed by environmental wacko-groups because… in her words, ‘I’ve stood for clean air.’” After Harvard president Lawrence Summers commented on the intrinsic differences between the sexes, Limbaugh wrote, “Led by foaming-at-the-mouth feminists, the liberal elite experienced a mass politically correct tantrum.” Jamieson and Cappella write: “Identifying terms such as ‘foaming-at-the-mouth feminists,’ ‘liberal elite,’ ‘enemy,’ and ‘environmental wacko-groups’ both create an insider language and distance those who adopt the labels from those labeled. One of the ways Limbaugh’s supporters telegraph their identification with him is by adopting his language.” Identifying Nicknames - They cite the 1995 statement of freshman House Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY), who proudly proclaimed of her fellow female Republicans, “There’s not a femi-Nazi among us,” using one of Limbaugh’s favorite terms for feminists. “Listeners say ‘Ditto’ or ‘megadittoes’ to telegraph their enthusiasm for Limbaugh, his latest argument, or his show in general,” they write. Limbaugh refers to himself as “the MahaRushie” with “talent on loan from God.” Callers often refer to Limbaugh as “my hero.” Denigrating nicknames for Limbaugh’s targets of derision work to bring listeners into the fold: the new listener must labor to identify the people termed (and thusly become part of the Limbaugh community): “Clintonistas” (supporters of Bill and/or Hillary Clinton), “Sheets” (Senator Robert Byrd, D-WV), who in his youth wore ‘sheets’ as a Ku Klux Klan member), “the Swimmer” (Senator Edward Kennedy, D-MA, in reference to his involvement in the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident), “Puffster” (former Senator Tom Daschle, D-SD), “the Breck Girl” (former Senator John Edwards, D-NC), and “Ashley Wilkes” (retired General Wesley Clark, in a reference to what Limbaugh called “the wimpy, pathetic Gone with the Wind character”). Some of the nicknames are physically derogatory: Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) became “Senator Leaky, a.k.a. Senator Depends,” and former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) became “‘Little Dick’ Gephardt.” Such use of “insider” nicknames indicates an identification between the listener and Limbaugh, and an affiliation with the Limbaugh community of supporters. Redefining and Relabeling - Limbaugh routinely redefines and relabels his political enemies in the most derogatory terms. Pro-choice supporters are termed “pro-aborts,” and Democrats are supported by “beggar-based constituencies.” As noted above, feminists are “femi-Nazis” (though Jamieson and Cappella note that Limbaugh has used the term less often since it became a topic of criticism in the mainstream media). Gender Identification - One of Limbaugh’s strongest attacks is on gender roles. In Limbaugh’s continuum, Democratic women are, the authors write, “either sexualized manipulators or unattractive man haters.” A 1994 Clinton tribute to women’s accomplishments became, in Limbaugh’s words, “Biddies’ Night Out.” Other times, Democratic women become “babes,” as in “Congressbabe Jane Harman.” (On his Web site, Limbaugh often shows Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)‘s head affixed to the body of a Miss America contender.) The authors note, “Neither label invites the audience to take these leaders seriously.” Women with whom he disagrees, such as liberal blogger Arianna Huffington, are “screeching,” and others are “broads,” “lesbians,” or “femi-Nazis.” The National Organization for Women (NOW) becomes, in Limbaugh’s vocabulary, the NAGS. Attacks and innuendo about women’s sexuality are frequently used by Limbaugh: during the Clinton administration, for example, Limbaugh often implied that Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Janet Reno were closeted lesbians. On the other hand, Democratic men are routinely portrayed as “two-inchers,” derogatory references to their physical attributes and sexual capabilities (as with the Gephardt nickname above). Jamieson and Cappella note that “Limbaugh’s attempts at gender-based humor are of the locker room variety,” noting several references to California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante as a Democrat whose name translates into “large breasts,” and referring to pop singer Madonna’s 2004 endorsement of General Wesley Clark for president by saying she had “opened herself” to Clark. In 2004, he said that Democratic presidential contender John Kerry, married to wealthy heiress Teresa Heinz-Kerry, “does his fundraising every night when he goes to bed.” (The authors write, “Why the vulgarity in this message does not alienate the churchgoing conservatives in his audience is a question for which we have no ready answer.”) Impact - Far from merely giving a laundry list of Limbaugh’s derogatory and offensive characterizations, Jamieson and Cappella note how Limbaugh and the conservative media “wrap their audiences in a conversation built on words and phrases that embody conservatism’s ideological assumptions,” using “naming and ridicule to marginalize those named as part of an out-group,” and using “coherent, emotion-evoking, dismissive language” to denigrate and dismiss the liberals he routinely attacks. “Because language does our thinking for us,” they write, “this process constructs not only a vocabulary but also a knowledge base for the audience. That language and the view of the world carried by it are presumed by loyal conservatives and alien to the nonconservative audience. These interpretations of people and events also reinforce Limbaugh’s defense of conservatism and its proponents.” [Washington Post, 2/15/1995; Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 184-190]

Progressive media watchdog site Media Matters reports that conservative radio host Bill Cunningham, who hosts a popular Cincinnati call-in show, accuses Democratic candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) of wanting to “gas the Jews.” In what is apparently intended to be a comedic skit, Cunningham tells a co-host: “This Obama guy loves the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization]. Can’t you figure that out?… Obama wants to gas the Jews, like the PLO wants to gas the Jews, like the Nazis gassed the Jews.” Co-host Scott Sloan, playing a fictional Jewish character called “Randy Furman,” tells Cunningham that he is making the accusation because “you just don’t like one-half-percent black people, that’s your problem.” [Media Matters, 10/25/2008] Two weeks before, Cunningham told listeners that Obama may be the Antichrist (see October 10, 2008).

Paul Broun. [Source: Associated Press / Washington Blade]Responding to President-elect Barack Obama’s proposal for a “civilian national security force,” an idea supported by President Bush and designed in part to revive the moribund Americorps (see March 31, 2009), Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) accuses Obama of wanting to establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship. “It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Broun says. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may—may not, I hope not—but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.… That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the US military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.” Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor says the candidate was referring to a “civilian reserve corps” that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts in lieu of the military. The idea has been endorsed by the Bush administration. Broun also says that if elected, Obama will ban gun ownership among American citizens. Obama has repeatedly says he respects the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, and favors “common sense” gun laws. Some gun advocates fear that Obama will curb ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. “We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun says. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential of going down that road.” [Associated Press, 11/11/2008; Think Progress, 11/11/2008]

The conservative Washington Times, a staunch opponent of President-elect Barack Obama, publishes an editorial predicting that the incoming Obama administration will, in some form or fashion, move to “exterminate” babies with disabilities and other “useless” Americans through its promised reform of the US health care system, similar to actions taken by the Nazis before World War II. The Times provides a brief synopsis of Adolf Hitler’s “T4 Aktion” program designed, in the words of the Times, “to exterminate ‘useless eaters,’ babies born with disabilities. When any baby was born in Germany, the attending nurse had to note any indication of disability and immediately notify T4 officials—a team of physicians, politicians, and military leaders. In October 1939 Hitler issued a directive allowing physicians to grant a ‘mercy death’ to ‘patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health.’ Thereafter, the program expanded to include older children and adults with disabilities, and anyone anywhere in the Third Reich was subject to execution who was blind, deaf, senile, retarded, or had any significant neurological condition, encephalitis, epilepsy, muscular spasticity, or paralysis. Six killing centers were eventually established, and an estimated quarter-million people with disabilities were executed.” The Times draws a parallel between the Nazis and the Obama administration’s support for legal abortion and for physician-assisted suicide, which it equates with “euthanasia.” The incoming administration will, the Times fears, begin “selecting” babies with disabilities for what apparently will be “selective abortions.” It quotes the Reverend Briane K. Turley as saying: “Were God’s design for us left unhindered, we could naturally expect to welcome 40,000 or more newborn infants with Down syndrome each year in the US. And yet we have reduced that number to just under 5,500. These data strongly indicate that, in North America, we have already discovered a new, ‘final solution’ for these unusual children and need only to adapt our public policies to, as it were, ‘cure’ all Down syndrome cases.” Turley, the Times notes, claims that “there is growing evidence suggesting that, among health care practitioners and systems, the central motivation behind legally enforced or high pressure screenings is economics.” The Times then adds: “[A]nd the results seem to bear him out. America’s T4 program—trivialization of abortion, acceptance of euthanasia, and the normalization of physician assisted suicide—is highly unlikely to be stopped at the judicial, administrative, or legislative levels anytime soon, given the Supreme Court’s current and probable future makeup during the Obama administration, the administrative predilections that are likely from that incoming administration, and the makeup of the new Congress.” The Times predicts a new “final solution” of “extermination” that will start with disabled infants and will progress “from prenatal to postnatal to child to adult.” [Washington Times, 11/23/2008] The editorial anticipates the “deather” claims that many conservatives will make in the summer of 2009 (see January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, and August 13, 2009).

The conservative “astroturf” advocacy organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004, October 2008, and August 6, 2009) launches a multi-pronged attack on every major policy initiative attempted by the Obama administration. Within weeks of Obama’s inauguration, AFP holds “Porkulus” rallies protesting Obama’s stimulus spending measures. The Koch-funded Mercatus Center (see August 30, 2010), working in concert with AFP, releases a report that falsely claims stimulus funds are being disproportionately directed towards Democratic districts; the author is later forced to correct the report, but not before conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, citing the report, calls the stimulus program “a slush fund,” and Fox News and other conservative outlets repeat the characterization. AFP vice president Phil Kerpen is a Fox News contributor; AFP officer Walter Williams is a frequent guest host for Limbaugh. AFP soon creates an offshoot organization, Patients United Now (PUN—see May 29, 2009), designed to oppose the Obama administration’s health care reform initiatives; PUN holds some 300 rallies against reform efforts (see August 5, 2009), some of which depict Democratic lawmakers hung in effigy (see July 27, 2009) and others depict corpses from Nazi concentration camps. AFP also holds over 80 rallies opposing cap-and-trade legislation, which would force industries to pay for creating air pollution. AFP also targets individual Obama administration members, such as “green jobs” czar Van Jones, and opposes the administration’s attempt to hold international climate talks. AFP leader Tim Phillips (see August 6, 2009) tells one anti-environmental rally: “We’re a grassroots organization.… I think it’s unfortunate when wealthy children of wealthy families… want to send unemployment rates in the United States up to 20 percent.” [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]

Media critic and columnist George Neumayr writes that the Democrats’ economic stimulus plan will include enforced abortions and euthanasia for less productive citizens. Neumayr calls this claim a once “astonishingly chilly and incomprehensible stretch [that] is now blandly stated liberal policy,” basing it on the Democrats’ plan to provide money to the states for “family planning.” Neumayr equates the funding, which would go for such initiatives as teaching teenagers about the use of condoms and measures to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, to the famous Jonathan Swift essay of 1729, “A Modest Proposal,” which satirically suggested that impoverished Irish families might sell their children to rich Englishmen for food. “Change a few of the words and it could be a Democratic Party policy paper,” Neumayr writes. “Swift suggested that 18th-century Ireland stimulate its economy by turning children into food for the wealthy. [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] proposes stimulating the US economy by eliminating them. Other slumping countries, such as Russia and France, pay parents to have children; it looks like Obama’s America will pay parents to contracept or kill them. Perhaps the Freedom of Choice Act can also fall under the Pelosi ‘stimulus’ rationale. Why not? An America of shovels and scalpels will barrel into the future. Euthanasia is another shovel-ready job for Pelosi to assign to the states. Reducing health care costs under Obama’s plan, after all, counts as economic stimulus too. Controlling life, controlling death, controlling costs. It’s all stimulus in the Brave New World utopia to come.” Like a Washington Times editorial from months earlier (see November 23, 2008), Neumayr uses the term “final solution” for the Democrats’ economic proposal, the term for the Nazis’ World War II-era extermination of millions of Jews and other “undesirables.” He writes: “‘Unwanted’ children are immediately seen as an unspeakable burden. Pregnancy is a punishment, and fertility is little more than a disease. Pelosi’s gaffe illustrates the extent to which eugenics and economics merge in the liberal utilitarian mind.” “Malthus lives,” he says, referring to the 19th century scholar Thomas Robert Malthus, whose theories of ruthless natural selection predated Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution. Neumayr goes on to accuse “Hillary Clinton’s State Department” of preparing to set up programs of “people-elimination,” predicated on what he calls “UN-style population control ideology” and “third-world abortions.” [American Spectator, 1/27/2009]

Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) apologizes for criticizing conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Gingrey was initially critical of Limbaugh and Hannity for not challenging President Obama on his proposed economic stimulus package strongly enough. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes [former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich [R-GA] to stand back and throw bricks,” Gingrey said. “You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party.” Today Gingrey issues a lengthy apology for his words after receiving complaints from conservatives in his district and elsewhere. “I am one of you,” he tells supporters. “I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives—that was not my intent. I am also sorry to see that my comments in defense of our Republican leadership read much harsher than they actually were intended, but I recognize it is my responsibility to clarify my own comments.… As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values. I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called ‘stimulus.’ And on so many of these things, I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh.” Gingrey says that Limbaugh, Hannity, and Gingrich are “the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience.” Gingrey spokesman Chris Jackson says of the hosts, “Those guys are some our biggest supporters, and we need them.” Gingrey also makes a guest appearance on Limbaugh’s show where he berates himself for making his earlier criticisms, saying: “Rush, thank you so much. I thank you for the opportunity, of course this is not exactly the way to I wanted to come on.… Mainly, I want to express to you and all your listeners my very sincere regret for those comments I made yesterday to Politico.… I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments.… I regret those stupid comments.” [Think Progress, 1/28/2009; Phil Gingrey, 1/28/2009; CNN, 1/29/2009]

The Washington Times spins off a recent op-ed by health industry lobbyist Betsy McCaughey (see February 9, 2009) to claim that the Obama administration will attempt to save money by euthanizing old people, disabled people, and sickly infants. The editorial begins with the “chilling” idea of a national medical information database that will allow the government to “track… your every visit to a health care provider—where you went, who you saw, what was diagnosed, and what care was provided.” The Obama administration, the Times claims, will use that information to decide which people deserve the more expensive lifesaving treatments and which ones must be denied in the interest of cost efficiency. “If it costs too much to treat you, and you are nearing the end of your life anyway, you may have to do with less, or with nothing,” the Times writes. “You just aren’t worth the cost.… What nondescript GS-11 will be cutting care from Aunt Sophie after her sudden relapse before he or she heads to the food court for some stir fry?” The elderly, the physically and mentally disabled, all “whose health costs are great and whose ability to work productively in the future” will, the Times writes, be allowed to die or even exterminated. So will premature babies, badly wounded soldiers, and others as yet to be determined. The Times again cites Nazi Germany’s “T4 Aktion” program of forcibly euthanizing less productive citizens (see November 23, 2008) as a likely template for the Obama program. [Washington Times, 2/11/2009]

Michael Savage, a conservative radio host, calls President Obama a “dictator” as part of a larger diatribe against the president. He calls Obama “a young, articulate rabble-rouser” who “is espousing a message that I call ‘trickle-up poverty’.… Where it ends? I know where it ends, because I’ve studied history. I know where it ends. The signal as to when this begins, when the end begins, will be when he organizes a militia directly under his own control. He will not call it a militia. It will be called, perhaps, the ‘Ecology Corps’ or the ‘Environment Corps,’ or the ‘Global Warming Corps,’ or the ‘Energy Corps.’” Savage may be referring to Obama’s efforts to revive the moribund Americorps, a volunteer organization (see November 11, 2008 and March 31, 2009). “Whatever it will be called, they will all wear uniforms. They will either be blue denim or green denim. They will have the executive power under the ‘urban czar’ to come into your home without any court order to investigate your energy use, but they will be looking for other things as well. Would you have any chance to stand up to this army of Obamaites?” Savage asks, rhetorically, if he has “gone over the edge,” and then says: “I’ve gone over the edge before, and every time I have, I’ve been right eventually. I see the handwriting on the wall. Obama is a dictator.” Savage accuses liberals of failing to understand that any dictatorship, leftist or rightist, “is not going to be good for your children.” He then shouts, “Someone has to oppose this man.” He also claims that the White House “is going after” anyone who criticizes it, and repeatedly mixes his accusations of “government” persecution with “media” persecution of White House or Obama critics. “Fundamentally,” Savage concludes, “we have a dictatorship emerging.… Now I’ll make another prediction. I predict that very soon, Obama will create a crisis along the lines of the Reichstag Fire [the 1933 attack on the Reichstag by Nazi militiamen, who later blamed the fire on Communists, and used the attack to gain control of the German government]. I don’t know what form it will take. But I believe that once the minions are seen for what they are, Rahm Emanuel [the White House chief of staff] and his gang will set off a Reichstag Fire in this country of some kind, and they will” begin arresting US citizens without warrants much as President Lincoln did during the Civil War. “I will tell you as I sit here I fear that every night as I go to sleep.” Savage offers no evidence for any of his claims. [Media Matters, 3/4/2009] Two days later, Savage calls Obama a “neo-fascist dictator in the making.” [Media Matters, 3/6/2009] Savage has called the landmark civil rights decision Brown v. Board “sickening” (see May 18, 2004), accused Obama of being educated in a radical Islamic madrassa (see January 10, 2008 and April 3, 2008) and being a potential “radical Muslim” (see February 21, 2008), called Obama’s presidential victory “the first affirmative-action election in American history” (see February 1, 2008), accused Obama of being sympathetic towards the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese of World War II (see March 13, 2008), said that homeless Americans should be put in “work camps” (see June 6, 2008), called Obama an “Afro-Leninist” (see June 6, 2008), said that welfare recipients should lose the right to vote (see October 22, 2008), accused Obama of using his grandmother’s death to conceal his “efforts” to falsify his Hawaiian birth certificate (see November 10, 2008), and accused Obama of planning to fire all the “competent white men” in government once he became president (see November 18, 2008). Other conservatives, including Fox News’s Glenn Beck, will accuse Obama of being a Nazi, or of intending to create a “Reichstag Fire” crisis to gain power (see September 29, 2009 and October 3, 2010).

On his radio show, conservative host Glenn Beck warns that the Democrats’ “socialistic” health care reform proposal will lead to “eugenics” as envisioned by leaders of the Nazi Third Reich. Beck tells his listeners that the reform package will not only result in senior citizens being forced to die before their time in order to save on medical costs (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, and February 18, 2009), but also says: “This is Nazi Germany stuff. This is the kind of stuff that is progressive in its nature. It is eugenics. It is survival of the fittest. It is the reason why the abortion argument makes so much difference. You can’t devalue life at either end because these people are waiting to swoop in and say it’s just not worth doing these things. Don’t waste the money on old people. They’re not going to live long anyway. Spend it on someone who meets the requirements of our cost-benefit analysis. So old people, thanks for all the contributions you made to society during your better years but now we’re sorry to say it’s time to send you to a better place, heaven.” [Glenn Beck, 5/13/2009]

Flowers adorn the sidewalk outside George Tiller’s clinic in Wichita, Kansas, laid in his memory. [Source: AP: Charlie Riedel]The family of George Tiller, a doctor who provided late-term abortions as part of his practice before being murdered (see May 31, 2009), decides that his Wichita, Kansas, clinic will be closed permanently. Nebraska doctor LeRoy Carhart, who worked at the clinic, said he was willing to continue, but the decision is the family’s. Warren Hern, one of the few remaining doctors in the US who performs late-term abortions, says: “This is what they want, they’ve been wanting this for 35 years. The anti-abortion fanatics have to shut up and go home. They have to back off and they have to respect other people’s point of view. This is a national outrage.” Randall Terry, original founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, says, “Good riddance,” and predicts that Tiller’s clinic will be remembered similarly to Nazi death camps. In a statement, the Tiller family says, “We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women’s health care needs have been met because of his dedication and service.” [Associated Press, 6/9/2009]

Laura Ingraham. [Source: Pat Dollard]Fox News and radio talk show host Sean Hannity tells his radio audience of the op-ed published in the morning’s New York Post by health industry lobbyist Betsy McCaughey, claiming that the Democrats’ health care reform proposal would result in senior citizens being advised to end their lives prematurely (see July 16, 2009). Hannity says: “[I]t sounds to me like they’re actually encouraging seniors in the end, ‘Well, you may just want to consider packing it all in here, this is—’ what other way is there to describe this?… So that they don’t become a financial burden on the Obamacare system? I mean that’s how they intend to cut cost, by cutting down on the health care we can give and get at the end of our lives and dramatically cutting it down for senior citizens? You know, welcome to the brave new world of Obamacare. We’re going to encourage, you know, inconvenient people to consider ‘alternatives to living.’” The same day, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham tells her listeners: “Can you imagine—if I were doing Saturday Night Live, like, if I were producing it this weekend, and I was going to be fair about political humor, I would have a hospice chute—like a door, a trap door that goes into a chute where the elderly would just walk up—‘Oh, my hip hurts.’ And all of a sudden you see this leg kicking granny down the chute, and that’s Obamacare.” She continues by making a veiled reference to Nazi concentration camps: “[S]ome will call them death camps, but this is the way Obamacare is gonna go for America.” And on the same day, conservative radio hosts Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent echo Hannity and Ingraham’s claims. Quinn says, “[T]here’s a drop dead date, you should pardon the expression but a lot of us are going to—” Tennent interjects, “Are going to drop dead, yeah.” Quinn then adds, “For heaven’s sakes, this is the death-to-old-people plan.” [Media Matters, 7/17/2009]

Rep. Louis Gohmert. [Source: Associated Press / Washington Blade]Representative Louis Gohmert (R-TX) lays out a skein of theories on radical radio host Alex Jones’s broadcast. During his interview with Jones, Gohmert accuses the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats of trying to implement socialism and kill senior citizens; Jones and Gohmert compare Obama to a number of foreign despots. Gohmert tells Jones and his listeners: “We’ve been battling this socialist health care, the nationalization of health care, that is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They’ll put them on lists and force them to die early because they won’t get the treatment as early as they need.… I would rather stop this socialization of health care because once the government pays for your health care, they have every right to tell you what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, where you live.… But if we’re going to pay 700 million dollars like we voted last Friday to put condoms on wild horses, and I know it just says an un-permanent enhanced contraception whatever the heck that is. I guess it follows that they’re eventually get around to doing it to us.” Gohmert is echoing claims by Republican lawmakers and industry lobbyists that the Democrats’ health care reform proposal will kill senior citizens (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, and July 23-24, 2009). Jones ups the ante by accusing the White House “science czar” of planning to “put… stuff in the water to sterilize us,” and then goes on to accuse the White House of, among other things, implementing a “eugenics control grid over us” and implementing “youth brigades, national service compulsory in a group outside the military under the Democratic Party control in the city year in the red and black uniforms.” Gohmert agrees with Jones, and says these kinds of policies were “done in the 1930s,” a plain reference to Nazi Germany, “and it’s not the only place its been done. It has been done throughout history.” Jones says, “Mao did it,” referring to Communist China’s Mao Zedong. Gohmert agrees: “Well, that’s exactly what I was thinking of. This is the kind of the thing we got to stop. We got to get back to the roots, the basics.” Gohmert praises Jones for his rhetoric and accusations: “That shows how on top of things you are, Alex.” For his part, Jones effusively thanks Gohmert and reminds him that “you’re there fighting and we’re supporting you.” [Think Progress, 7/27/2009] Progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says of Gohmert and Jones: “You know, the Democrats may be fighting it out about whether they’re going to be beholden to the insurance companies and whether there’s going to be a public option in health care reform. But when it comes to the Republicans, this is the kind of thing they are bringing to the table: Hitler, Mao, and secret plots to kill old people.” [MSNBC, 7/29/2009]

MacKilip’s altered photograph of Obama as a witch doctor. [Source: TPM Muckraker]Dr. David McKalip, a neurosurgeon, resigns as president-elect of the Pinellas County (Florida) Medical Association after circulating a graphic of President Obama dressed as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. On July 23, he sent the graphic as an e-mail with the heading “Funny stuff,” and said that he thought the artist who created the graphic “was expressing concerns that the health care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country.” McKalip is an outspoken opponent of the White House’s proposed health care reform package. He later apologized and denied he is a racist, and called the graphic merely a “satire.” In an e-mail to the members of the association, he writes, “For now, in the interest of protecting this movement from any collateral damage, I am withdrawing from making media appearances on health system reform.” But in an e-mail to fellow anti-reform protesters, he writes: “Here they come. The first of what likely will be many e-mails accusing me of being a rascist [sic] for forwarding this e-mail of Obama as a witch doctor. Almost like Hillary [Clinton] and the Obama photo form [sic] the presidential campaign.… This may be worth doing a story on about how these ultra-liberal groups like to race bait and avoid the issue.… Lesson learned: Any attempt to discuss politics will lead to a race-baiting war.… Don’t let them bait you. I will choose to ignore them and always talk about the issues.” In a previous e-mail defending his choice to send the Obama picture, McKalip cited his participation in a “career counseling day several years ago for African-American Boy Scouts.” [TPM Muckraker, 7/23/2009; Connexion, 7/28/2009] After learning of McKalip’s action, the association called the e-mail “inflammatory,” said it “denounced” McKalip’s act, demanded a public apology, and called itself “appalled by the statements and act” of McKalip. [Pinellas County Medical Association, 7/24/2009]

Anti-reform protesters carry signs depicting Doggett with ‘devil horns’ and a sign featuring Nazi SS lettering. [Source: Raw Story]Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) receives a hostile reception in a town hall meeting in an Austin grocery store. The meeting is to discuss the controversial Democratic health care reform proposal. The crowd is much larger than some had anticipated, and apparently packed with anti-health care reform protesters; anti-reform and anti-Obama signs are prominently displayed, including signs that read, “No Socialized Health Care.” Protesters also wave signs with Doggett depicted with devil horns, of a marble tombstone with Doggett’s name on it, and with slogans alleging Democrats are Nazis. When Doggett tells the crowd that he will support the reform plan even if his constituents oppose it, many in the crowd begin chanting “Just say no!” and, according to news reports, “overwhelm… the congressman as he move[s] through the crowd and into the parking lot.” One resident says of the meeting: “The folks there thought their voices weren’t being heard. They were angry, but they were respectful. There wasn’t any violence.” Another says, laughing: “He jumped in [his car] and fled. It was like he was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It was a beautiful thing.” Doggett later notes that because of the disruption, he is unable to engage in discussion with constituents who have other issues, including a father who wants his help in getting his son into a military academy. [Austin American-Statesman, 8/3/2009; New York Times, 8/3/2009; Atlantic Monthly, 8/4/2009]Congressman: Protesters a 'Mob' - Doggett will later characterize the anti-reform protesters as a “mob.” In a statement, he says: “This mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertarian parties, did not come just to be heard, but to deny others the right to be heard. And this appears to be part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. What could be more appropriate for the ‘party of no’ than having its stalwarts drowning out the voices of their neighbors by screaming ‘just say no!‘… Their fanatical insistence on repealing Social Security and Medicare is not just about halting health care reform but rolling back 75 years of progress. I am more committed than ever to win approval of legislation to offer more individual choice to access affordable health care. An effective public plan is essential to achieve that goal.” [Politico, 8/3/2009; CBS News, 8/3/2009]Coordinated by Local Republicans, Washington Lobbyist Firm, 'Tea Party' Group - The protest is coordinated by Heather Liggett, a local Republican Party operative, and by officials with the lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which has organized numerous anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations (see April 15, 2009 and May 29, 2009). Liggett confirms she is part of a national network of conservative organizers putting together anti-reform protests. Doggett says: “This is not a grassroots effort. This is a very coordinated effort where the local Republican Party, the local conservative meet-up groups sent people to my event.” Of the event itself, he says: “In Texas, not only with the weather but with the politics, it is pretty hardball around here. I have a pretty thick skin about all of this. But this really goes over the line.” And Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), adds: “Conservative activists don’t want to have a conversation. They want to disrupt.” [New York Times, 8/3/2009] Democratic National Committee (DNC) spokesman Brad Woodhouse says, “The right-wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the president’s citizenship, and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are.” Another group with connections to the “tea party” movement, “Operation Embarrass Your Congressman,” helped organize the protest. It says on its Web site: “These arrogant, ignorant, and insolent [Congress members] have embarrassed America, trampled the Constitution, and ignored their constituents for far too long. Attend their townhall meetings during recess and press them with intelligent questions (unlike the mainstream media), asked in an intelligent manner to see if they are really in touch and on board with ‘the will of the people.’” [CBS News, 8/3/2009] After the meeting, FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying organization that actively promotes disruptive behavior at Congressional town halls (see April 14, 2009), posts video from the meeting, and exhorts its members, “If you know of a town hall meeting your Congressman is having, be sure to show up, bring some friends, and them know what you think.” [FreedomWorks, 8/3/2009]

Two House Representatives, James McGovern (D-MA) and Richard Neal (D-MA), are booed and heckled during a contentious town hall meeting at the University of Massachusetts to discuss health care reform. Like so many other such forums and meetings, the discussion is disrupted by anti-health care reform protesters, who shout, scream, boo, catcall, and chant throughout the meeting (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, and August 4, 2009). Both McGovern and Neal support the Obama administration’s health care reform proposals. University officials threaten several times to shut down the meeting because of the behavior. One protester shouts that McGovern is like Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who performed horrific experiments on concentration camp prisoners during World War II. According to local media reports, protesters outnumber supporters at the meeting. They argue that health care would be strictly rationed and elderly citizens would be denied care altogether, points vehemently disputed by the two congressmen. After the meeting, McGovern says it is plain that health care reform opponents had planned to dominate the meeting with their tactics, but adds: “This is still the United States of America and people have the right to be heard. The meeting wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t always polite but I got the opportunity to express my view on the subject.” [Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 8/4/2009]

The logo used for the Obama administration’s health care proposal on the White House Web site. The logo combines the Obama presidential campaign’s ‘sunrise’ emblem with a stylized version of the medical caduceus. [Source: White House]After denouncing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for claiming that anti-health care protesters had used Nazi symbols and rhetoric in their protests (see August 6, 2009), conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh also makes a comparison between the Obama administration and Nazis. “Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate,” he says. Like Obama, Limbaugh asserts, Hitler “was called the Messiah” and did not need the advice of a cabinet or other advisers to make decisions. “The people spoke through” Hitler, as Limbaugh says Obama believes is the case for himself. Hitler’s decisions “sound like the things liberals are doing all over this country.” To Pelosi, he says, “You look much more like [a swastika] than any of us [conservatives] ever will.” [Media Matters, 8/6/2009; Boston Globe, 8/6/2009] Limbaugh also says that the Obama administration’s health care logo looks very much like the “Nazi swastika logo.” He adds: “It reminded me of Germany. Something about it reminded me of Germany, 1942. The shape of the logo, the people.… The Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo.… Ms. Pelosi has some major apologizing to do.” He says perhaps Pelosi’s supposed “repeated botox injections” have caused her to have “blurry vision” that may have prevented her from seeing the similarities he noticed. [Media Matters, 8/6/2009; Boston Globe, 8/6/2009] Limbaugh apparently gets much of his information, including the Botox joke, from a right-wing blog, “Sweetness and Light,” which he credits in his statement. [Sweetness and Light, 8/6/2009] The next day, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center says, “It is preposterous to try and make a connection between the president’s health care logo and the Nazi Party symbol, the Reichsadler.” [New York Times, 8/7/2009] Jennifer Crider of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) responds to Limbaugh’s assertions: “Rush Limbaugh’s comparison of the Democratic Party to the Nazi Party in World War II is as disgusting as it is shocking. Limbaugh’s use of the Nazi swastika in attempting to make a tasteless political comparison has no place in the public discourse. At a time when families need real solutions to rebuild the economy and make health care more affordable, Rush Limbaugh is attempting to sidetrack the important debate through his use of symbols that are synonymous with murder and intolerance. Americans deserve better.” [Boston Globe, 8/6/2009] Conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times calls Limbaugh’s rhetoric “insane.” [Media Matters, 8/10/2009]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a primarily Jewish organization that battles anti-Semitism, decries the use of Nazi symbols and language in recent health care debates (see July 25, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6, 2009). In a press release, the ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, calls such remarks “outrageous, deeply offensive, and inappropriate.” He singles out conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for specific criticism after Limbaugh repeatedly compares Obama administration policies to those of the Nazis. “Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive, and inappropriate,” Foxman says. “Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler. This is not where the debate should be at all.… Comparisons to the Nazis are deeply offensive and only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity and the murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust. I don’t see any comparison here. It’s off-center, off-issue, and completely inappropriate.” [Anti-Defamation League, 8/7/2009]

Eric Boehlert. [Source: Simon & Schuster]Eric Boehlert, an author and editor of the progressive news watchdog organization Media Matters, writes that, in his eyes, the media is ignoring the biggest “political story of the year”: “the unhinged radical-right response to [President] Obama’s inauguration and the naked attempt to dehumanize and delegitimize him through a nonstop smear campaign,” which he says is sponsored by the Republican Party and its conservative supporters. “The misguided movement breaks all kinds of taboos in American politics,” Boehlert writes, “as well as in the press, and is redefining our political culture—for the worse. Yet the press continues to play dumb.” Playing the Nazi Card - Boehlert takes as his springboard the relative disinterest the mainstream media shows to the repeated accusations that Obama and/or Congressional Democrats are Nazis, or Nazi sympathizers, or have Nazi-like goals and ideals (see July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, and August 10-11, 2009), as well as the virtually unreported use of Nazi symbols and rhetoric at anti-health care protests (see July 25, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 8, 2009). Boehlert notes that in January 2004, the liberal advocacy organization MoveOn received weeks of negative publicity and media attention when it briefly posted two amateur video clips on its Web site submitted as part of a contest for 30-second Internet advertisements against the policies of the Bush administration. The organization removed the clips within hours and apologized for posting them, but was berated for weeks over the ads. Now, Boehlert notes, Rush Limbaugh and other prominent conservative spokespersons routinely use accusations of Nazism in their rhetorical attacks on Obama and Democrats, with virtually no acknowledgement from the press. Boehlert writes: “Despite the fact that Limbaugh has not apologized for his comments—unlike MoveOn in 2004—and is continuing to compare the Obama White House and the Democratic Party with Nazis, many in the media don’t consider it newsworthy and haven’t condemned it. And more important, journalists don’t show any signs of believing that the episode tells us anything about the radically unhinged nature of the right-wing media in this country today.” Apparently, he writes, most media analysts just consider Limbaugh’s extreme rhetoric a case of “Rush being Rush.” But, he asks, if Limbaugh is going to be considered the de facto leader of conservative thought in America, why isn’t he being challenged on his use of what Boehlert calls “his radical and outrageous rhetoric.… He went to a place that previously was considered unconscionable and unpardonable by the press.… Why isn’t Limbaugh uniformly condemned for his words?” Accusations of Racism, Racist Pronouncements - And Limbaugh is merely one of many. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck recently accused Obama of being a “racist” and having a “deep-seated hatred of white people” (see July 28-29, 2009), and outside of the small number of progressive/liberal hosts on MSNBC and a few scattered notations in the press, the accusation was virtually ignored. “At the [Washington] Post, which obsesses over the intersection of the media and politics,” Boehlert writes, “the jaw-dropping attack by Fox News’s superstar host wasn’t considered newsworthy. That’s correct: Two of the most popular and powerful conservative voices in America have recently called out Obama as a Nazi and a racist.” Legitimizing Extremism - Boehlert assigns part of the blame to journalists being “spooked by decades’ worth of ‘liberal media bias’ attacks” that drive them to “refuse to connect the glaringly obvious dots on display.” The extreme rhetorical attacks dovetail with what he calls “the town hall mini-mobs that are wreaking havoc across the country” and “the bizarre birther conspiracy theory” that insists Obama is not a US citizen, but some sort of “plant” from Kenya brought to America to bring down American democracy. “The three right-wing phenomena are all related,” he writes, “and they all revolve around a runaway hatred of Obama (as well as the federal government), and they’re all being fueled by the [conservative media operation], especially Fox News and Limbaugh, both of which no longer recognize common decency, let alone journalistic standards. Yet instead of putting Limbaugh on the receiving end of well-deserved scrutiny and scorn, rather than turning his comments into a political firestorm, the press plays dumb and actually goes out of its way to legitimize the worst offenders of the GOP’s hate brigade.” Boehlert condemns ABC News for inviting conservative blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin to take part in a discussion of health care reform “with Pulitzer Prize-winning writers.” Malkin, he writes, is a prime member of the “hate brigade,” helping push the increasingly angry and violent mob confrontations as well as exhorting readers to believe that the Democrats want to exterminate the elderly (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 7, 2009, and August 10, 2009). The New Yorker recently praised Michael Savage, who routinely attacks women, gays, liberals, and minorities with the worst rhetorical excess (see January 10, 2008, February 1, 2008, February 21, 2008, March 13, 2008, April 3, 2008, June 6, 2008, June 6, 2008, August 25, 2008, October 8-10, 2008, October 21, 2008, October 22, 2008, November 10, 2008, and November 18, 2008), calling him “fun” and “addictive.” Comparing the Statistics - Boehlert notes that in January 2004, the Indianapolis Star published five letters to the editor about the MoveOn controversy. To date, it has not published a single letter about Limbaugh’s Nazi accusations towards Obama or Democrats. In January 2004, 28 of the nation’s largest newspapers published a total of 54 stories, articles, or letters about the MoveOn controversy. To date, that group has published a combined total of six stories about Limbaugh’s Nazi allegations. No paper has printed more than one story on the topic. In January 2004, the MoveOn-Nazi story garnered 300 percent more airtime on CNN than the Limbaugh-Nazi story has received. [Media Matters, 8/11/2009]

An elderly protester outside the Raleigh, North Carolina, office of Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) ties together two popular claims of the anti-health care reform movement: the reform proposal will kill senior citizens, and the reformers are like Nazis. The unidentified protester tells a television interviewer: “Hitler got rid of his undesirable citizens through ovens. [President] Obama wants to get rid of people like me through hospice.… If [people] are a certain age, grim reapers calling themselves as counselors will go and tell them to take a pill and just die.” [New York Times, 8/13/2009]

A member of the LaRouche Youth Movement compares the Obama health care reform proposal to Nazi policies. [Source: Darren McCollester / Getty Images]A testy Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) loses patience with a raucous, shouting crowd of angry protesters at a two-hour town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Frank, who strongly supports the Democrats’ health care reform proposals, attempts to answer the shouted questions and accusations from protesters, who often attempt to shout him down before he can complete his answers, and boo him from the moment he is introduced. Frank repeatedly asks, “You want me to talk about it or do you want to yell?” and asks, “Which one of you wants to yell next?” He also says frequently: “Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.” Frank finally loses patience when Rachel Brown of the LaRouche Youth Movement tells him that President Obama’s health care policies are comparable to those of Nazi Germany, meanwhile waving a pamphlet depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache. “This policy is actually already on its way out,” Brown says. “It already has been defeated by LaRouche. My question to you is, why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?” Frank, a Jew, retorts: “When you ask me that question, I’m going to revert to my ethnic heritage and ask you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time? You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis.” He says her ability to deface an image of the president and express her views “is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated,” and concludes: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.” During less contentious moments, Frank rebuts claims that the reform proposal would mandate free health care for illegal immigrants, and attempts to read the pertinent section of the bill through the shouts and catcalls. He asks why protesters demand for him to answer and then scream through his answers: “What’s the matter with you all? I don’t know if you get angrier when I answer the questions, or when you don’t think I do.” [Associated Press, 8/19/2009; CNN, 8/19/2009; Think Progress, 8/19/2009; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/19/2009; Boston Globe, 8/20/2009]'Look for the Mustache' - A representative of the Massachusetts Republican Party later says Brown and other LaRouche supporters were at the forum “to cause problems,” and denies any Republican involvement in the shouting or pamphleteering. A LaRouche spokeswoman, Nancy Spannaus, says, “LaRouche PAC members are giving leadership to these town hall meetings all around the country so we are being at any one that we possibly can.” The Obama “mustache poster” “symbolizes the fact that the president is attempting to implement a Hitler health care policy,” she adds. “At any town hall, you’ll know LaRouche people are there if you just look for the mustache.” [Washington Post, 8/20/2009]Fox News: Frank's Remarks Proof that Democrats are 'Alienating Voters' - Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity and a Fox reporter, Griff Jenkins, say that Frank’s retorts to the protesters are proof that Democrats are “alienating voters” with their reform policies. Jenkins tells Hannity that Frank “talked down” to the protesters. Hannity calls Frank’s comments full of “arrogance [and] condescension.” Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Hannity’s guest, praises the LaRouche questioner and other protesters as evidence of American “democracy in action.” [Fox News, 8/18/2009]

Michael Savage, a conservative radio host, tells his listeners that President Obama wants to have an “Obama Youth” program similar to the Nazi’s “Hitler Youth.” Referring to a speech Obama is preparing that is aimed at schoolchildren (which Savage falsely claims Obama “is going to force” children to listen to), Savage says “every dictator” such as Adolf Hitler, Cuba’s Raul and Fidel Castro, and others have routinely attempted to “brainwash” their young citizens by making speeches to them. “[Y]ou gotta hand it to dictators,” Savage says, “they see the future. That once they seize total power, they need a generation that loves them. Hitler had the Hitler Youth, and Obama would like to have the Obama Youth. Now he can’t create the Obama Youth Corps overnight, but he can certainly address the schoolchildren of America as a captive audience and sell them on fraudulent ideas such as global warming, health care for all, higher taxation for the pig rich, and things of this nature, and that’s what happens under a dictatorship, things of this nature.” [Media Matters, 9/3/2009] Obama will give the speech on September 8; it contains non-controversial reminders for schoolchildren to “stay in school” and “work hard,” and contains no references to “global warming,” “health care for all,” or taxing the “pig rich.” Schools are invited to broadcast the speech into classrooms or assemblies, but are not required to by either the White House or local school boards. After the speech, a Baltimore teacher will tell a reporter that she is disappointed that the country has “become so polarized that we believe that our president is an enemy and not our leader.” During George W. Bush’s presidency, she will say, “whether I disagreed or not, I still saw him as a leader.” [White House, 9/8/2009; CNN, 9/8/2009] Savage has called the landmark civil rights decision Brown v. Board “sickening” (see May 18, 2004), accused Obama of being educated in a radical Islamic madrassa (see January 10, 2008 and April 3, 2008) and being a potential “radical Muslim” (see February 21, 2008), called Obama’s presidential victory “the first affirmative-action election in American history” (see February 1, 2008), accused Obama of being sympathetic towards the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese of World War II (see March 13, 2008), said that homeless Americans should be put in “work camps” (see June 6, 2008), called Obama an “Afro-Leninist” (see June 6, 2008), said that welfare recipients should lose the right to vote (see October 22, 2008), accused Obama of using his grandmother’s death to conceal his “efforts” to falsify his Hawaiian birth certificate (see November 10, 2008), accused Obama of planning to fire all the “competent white men” in government once he became president (see November 18, 2008), and called Obama a “dictator” (see March 4-6, 2009).

Fox News host Glenn Beck, in an interview with the conservative Web news provider NewsMax, says he “fears a Reichstag moment” from the Obama administration. Beck is referring to the 1933 burning of the German parliament building in Berlin that the Nazis blamed on Communists, and that Adolf Hitler used as an excuse to eliminate constitutional liberties and consolidate power. Beck says he “fears” that the Obama administration will either orchestrate, or take advantage of, a similar situation in America to abolish constitutional democracy and institute a tyrannical rule. “I fear a Reichstag moment,” he says. “God forbid, another 9/11. Something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized and voices will be silenced. God help us all.” The NewsMax article will subsequently be removed from the provider’s Web site, but the progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters writes an article about the interview, as do several other news organizations. [Media Matters, 9/30/2009; Chicago Tribune, 10/6/2009]

Fox News host Glenn Beck compares the National Education Association to Nazis. Beck, discussing a recent conference call by NEA officials in which artists reportedly discussed how “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda,” says that “advocating through art is known as propaganda. Hmm. You should look up the name Goebbels.” Beck is referring to Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda during the Nazi regime. [Media Matters, 11/3/2009]

Banner at the Capitol Hill rally depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an ‘Unamerican McCarthyite.’ [Source: MSNBC]Conservatives gather on Capitol Hill to protest the Obama administration’s push towards health care reform, in a rally featuring guest speaker Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN). [Media Matters, 11/6/2009] Bachmann called the rally the “Super Bowl of Freedom,” and told Fox News viewers that “socialized medicine is the crown jewel of socialism. This [health care reform] will change our country forever.” [TPM LiveWire, 11/3/2009; Mediaite, 11/11/2009] Actor Jon Voight, speaking to the crowd, says of President Obama: “His only success in one year as president is taking America apart piece by piece. Could it be 20 years of ‘subconscious programming’ from Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright [Obama’s former pastor] to damn America?” And House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) tells the crowd, “Pelosi care [referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA] is the greatest threat to freedom I’ve seen in my 19 years in Washington.” Signs Use Racial Images; Call Obama Communist, Nazi - Signs visible in the crowd proclaim, among other sentiments: “Get the Red Out of the White House”; “Waterboard Congress”; “Traitor to the US Constitution” (featuring a photo of Obama); “Ken-Ya Trust Obama?” (referring to theories that Obama is a citizen of Kenya—see January 24, 2007, January 16, 2008, August 1, 2008 and After, October 8-10, 2008, and August 11, 2009—and with autographs from Representatives Steve King, R-IA and Ron Paul, R-TX); “Un-American McCarthyite” (featuring a photo of Pelosi); “I’m the King of the World: Remember the Titanic?” (featuring a drawing of Obama as the “Jovial Sambo” character from the Jim Crow era); “National Socialist Health Care” (featuring a photograph of a pile of corpses from the Holocaust, and claiming that health care reform is the next “holocaust”). Nine rally participants are arrested for attempting to force their way into the Hart Senate Office Building. Hundreds more attempt to force themselves into nearby government office buildings while chanting, “Kill the bill!” [MSNBC, 11/5/2009]Sponsored by GOP - MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro writes: “It is important to know that this rally was set up by the GOP. While other groups certainly got people to show up, the folks who came here ultimately came at the invitation of the Republican Party. The GOP provided the speakers and the music, etc.” [MSNBC, 11/5/2009]Fox Pundit Inflates Crowd Estimates - While other media sources use local police reports to estimate the crowd at around 4,000, Fox News’s Sean Hannity tells listeners that the crowd is closer to 20,000 in size. Hannity later drastically scales back this claim. Hannity, who along with other Fox News pundits and on-air anchors had heavily promoted the rally for days beforehand, predicted the crowd would be “massive” in the hours before the protest. On his radio show, aired on ABC Radio Network, Hannity tells listeners: “We announced on Hannity Friday night on the Fox News Channel, we had Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on, and she mentioned that there was going to be on Thursday, she was going to put together in less than a week a little town hall on—what do you want to call it—march on our nation’s Capitol. And anyway, 20,000 people showed up today.” Hannity echoes the claim several times on his radio show. However, with no explanation, he concludes his radio broadcast by saying, “I heard there was, like, 5,000 people plus there.” [MSNBC, 11/5/2009; Media Matters, 11/6/2009] On Hannity’s Fox News broadcast later that evening, he returns to his earlier estimates of “20,000” rally participants, and shows viewers old footage from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 rally (see September 12, 2009) to bolster his claim. [Crooks and Liars, 11/11/2009] On November 11, Hannity will admit that he “screwed up” in showing the footage, and claims it was merely “an inadvertent mistake.” [Think Progress, 11/12/2009] Hannity does not address how the mistake came to be made. [New York Times, 11/11/2009] Media critic Rachel Sklar will write, “It’s really blatant and remarkable… this sort of misrepresentation is simply not an accident.” [Mediaite, 11/11/2009] A week later, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett will make a similar mistake (see November 18-19, 2009).

Fox News host Glenn Beck, speaking on his daily radio show, says that “progressives build the structure that a communist, a Marxist, a Nazi would love to have.” Beck is accusing the Obama administration of emulating Nazis and Communism by its programs of what he calls the “redistribution of wealth and social justice of wealth—engineered justice.” [Media Matters, 4/22/2010]

The American Jewish Coalition logo. [Source: The New Jew (.com)]The American Jewish Coalition (AJC) urges the Republican Party leadership to condemn former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)‘s assertion that the Obama administration’s policy agenda is as “great a threat to America as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.” Gingrich, a paid Fox News commentator, made the statement in a recently published book, To Save America; in interviews promoting the book, he has called the Obama administration a “secular socialist machine” similar in fashion and beliefs to the Nazi and Soviet regimes. The AJC’s executive director, David Harris, says: “By invoking the current administration in the same breath as two murderous totalitarian states, Newt Gingrich has drawn a foolish and dangerous analogy. Gingrich’s linkage not only diminishes the horror of the Holocaust, it also licenses the use of extremist language in contemporary America.” Gingrich has said he is not drawing moral distinctions, but has gone on to say that because of the Obama initiatives, “we are going to be in a country which no longer resembles America.” Harris says: “It is vital that the Republican leadership say clearly that such analogies are unacceptable. Unfortunately, as the recent controversy over the new immigration law in Arizona also demonstrates, demonizing political opponents as Nazis is becoming all too common in American political debate.” [Media Matters, 5/16/2010; American Jewish Coalition, 5/19/2010] On Fox News, Chris Wallace asks Gingrich if his claim isn’t “wildly over the top.” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, calls Gingrich’s comments “sick,” “shameful,” and “so over the top,” and adds, “I hope you apologize.” [Media Matters, 5/16/2010; Media Matters, 5/20/2010; Media Matters, 5/20/2010]

President Obama during his May 22, 2010 speech at West Point. [Source: Potusphere (.com)]Michael Savage, a conservative radio host, tells his listeners that President Obama does not have the right to speak to the graduating class of the Army’s United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and calls Obama “Little Mussolini,” after the Italian fascist dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler. Savage, referring to Obama’s May 22 speech to the graduating class of cadets, says Obama “slipped and gave himself away” during his speech, calls Obama “insecure” and “terrified,” and says Obama neither had the “right” nor the “honor to speak to the cadets,” and “is not qualified to speak to the cadets.” Obama, Savage says, “overcompensate[d]” during the speech by saying, “I have absolute power in some areas.” Savage then says: “That was to show the boys and the men at West Point who their boss was. It was ‘Little Mussolini,’ ‘Junior Doc’ Obama [referring to Haitian dictators ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier], who told them in no uncertain terms: ‘Don’t you dare think that I am not in charge. I’ll show you.’” Savage goes on to say Obama has “a woman problem” that has something to do with “the peripatic nature of his mother during his upbringing,” and questions Obama’s loyalty to the United States, asking if his loyalities “lie here [in the US] or somewhere else.… We suspect [they do] not lie here in Washington, DC.” [Media Matters, 5/25/2010] The reference to “absolute power” is a joke Obama made at the beginning of his speech. He told the cadets: “As your superintendent indicated, under our constitutional system my power as president is wisely limited. But there are some areas where my power is absolute. And so, as your commander in chief, I hereby absolve all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses. I will leave the definition of ‘minor’ to those who know better.” Obama received applause and laughter from the cadets for the wisecrack. [CBS News, 5/22/2010] Savage has called the landmark civil rights decision Brown v. Board “sickening” (see May 18, 2004), accused Obama of being educated in a radical Islamic madrassa (see January 10, 2008 and April 3, 2008) and being a potential “radical Muslim” (see February 21, 2008), called Obama’s presidential victory “the first affirmative-action election in American history” (see February 1, 2008), accused Obama of being sympathetic towards the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese of World War II (see March 13, 2008), said that homeless Americans should be put in “work camps” (see June 6, 2008), called Obama an “Afro-Leninist” (see June 6, 2008), said that welfare recipients should lose the right to vote (see October 22, 2008), accused Obama of using his grandmother’s death to conceal his “efforts” to falsify his Hawaiian birth certificate (see November 10, 2008), accused Obama of planning to fire all the “competent white men” in government once he became president (see November 18, 2008), accused Obama of desiring his own “Hitler Youth” program (see September 2, 2009), compared Obama to Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong (see December 3, 2009), and compared Obama to mass murderer Pol Pot (see December 17, 2009).

Jewish leaders meet privately with Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes to complain about the repeated anti-Semitism of Fox talk show host Glenn Beck. Simon Greer, the head of Jewish Funds for Justice, tells Ailes and Fox News senior vice president Joel Cheatwood that he was disturbed when Beck, on his broadcasts, compared his worldview to that of the Nazis and accused him of trying to create American “death camps”; Ailes and Cheatwood agree that Beck went too far and promise to discuss the matter with him. Two days later, Greer will receive a handwritten note from Beck that reads: “Please know that I understand the sensitivity and sacred nature of this dark chapter in Human History. Thank you for your candor and helpful thoughts.” Greer has said Beck “has a history of recklessly invoking Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in order to advance his political agenda,” a statement bolstered by research from the Washington Post. However, Beck has been praised by some Jewish figures for his support of Israel. Cheatwood later disagrees with Greer, saying neither he nor Ailes said Beck had crossed any lines, and adds, “We absolutely stood behind Glenn Beck 1,000 percent.” [Yahoo! News, 8/3/2010]

On Fox News’s morning broadcast Fox and Friends, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a frequent Fox commentator and presumptive Republican candidate for president in 2012, says of the controversial plans to build an Islamic community center two blocks from the site of the downed World Trade Center: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.” [Media Matters, 8/16/2010]

Glen Urquhart. [Source: Glen Urquhart for Congress]The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) releases a video showing Delaware Republican primary winner Glen Urquhart (R-DE) comparing believers in the separation of church and state to Nazis. Urquhart is running for the House seat vacated by moderate Republican Mike Castle (R-DE), who lost a contentious Delaware Senate primary to right-wing candidate Christine O’Donnell (see September 13, 2010). Both O’Donnell and Urquhart are backed by state and national “tea party” organizations. The DCCC is attempting to portray O’Donnell, Urquhart, and others as right-wing extremists. The video shows Urquhart speaking directly to the cameras, saying that the idea of the separation of church and state originated not with the Founding Fathers, but with Adolf Hitler: “Do you know, where does this phrase separation of church and state come from? Does anybody know?… Actually, that’s exactly, it was not in [Thomas] Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. He was reassuring that the federal government wouldn’t trample on their religion. The exact phrase ‘separation of church and state’ came out of Adolf Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. Next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of church and state ask them why they’re Nazis.” Urquhart’s spokesman David Anderson says the candidate has repeatedly apologized for the remarks, and says Urquhart “believes 100 percent in religious freedom for all Americans.” He was merely speaking out against what he calls the “oppression of religious freedom in the name of separation of church and state.… The phrase he used was unfortunate, and he apologized for it.” [The Hill, 9/17/2010; CBS News, 9/17/2010] CBS News notes that Jefferson indeed used the phrase “separation of church and state” in his letter to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association, writing, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church & state.” [CBS News, 9/17/2010; Jefferson, 9/17/2010]

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, in an examination of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s slippery grasp of history, notes that Beck routinely invokes Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former US President Woodrow Wilson in comparisons to President Obama. Beck has accused Obama and his administration of supporting “eugenics” similar to those advocated by some Nazis (see May 13, 2009), claimed that Obama, like the Nazis, believes in enforced sterilization, claimed that Obama would create “death panels” to decide who lives and dies under his health care reform proposals (see August 10, 2009), told his viewers to “read Mein Kampf” if they want to understand Obama’s ideology, repeatedly accused the Obama administration of “fascism” (see September 29, 2009), claimed the Obama “brownshirts” were readying a strategy to arrest Beck and other Fox News personnel in an attempt to shut down the network, accused the United Nations of “Nazism” in pursuing efforts to curb global warming, said Obama wanted to create his own version of the SS and Hitler Youth in revamping and expanding AmeriCorps (see March 31, 2009), and more. Milbank notes that Beck either gives no evidence whatsoever to bolster his claims, or gives evidence that is either misrepresented or entirely false. Milbank writes: “Beck, it seems, has a Nazi fetish. In his first 18 months on Fox News, from early 2009 through the middle of this year, he and his guests invoked Hitler 147 times. Nazis, an additional 202 times. Fascism or fascists, 193 times. The Holocaust got 76 mentions, and Joseph Goebbels got 24. And these mentions are usually in reference to Obama.” As for Wilson, Beck routinely labels the former president a “racist” “horror show” who was “the spookiest president we ever had,” usually in preparation for comparing him to Obama. [Washington Post, 10/3/2010] Six weeks later, Fox News president Roger Ailes, defending Beck, will tell an interviewer that Milbank should be “beheaded” for criticizing Beck (see November 17-18, 2010).

Foster Friess. [Source: New York Magazine]Foster Friess, a multi-millionaire who is the chief supporter of a “super PAC” supporting the presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum (R-PA), weighs in on the controversy surrounding new federal mandates for providing birth control in employers’ health care coverage. Friess dismisses the controversy by suggesting that if women just kept their legs closed, they would not need contraception. In an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Friess is asked if Santorum’s rigid views on sex and social issues (see April 7, 2003, April 23, 2003 and After, January 2011, January 7, 2011,
October 18, 2011 and After, June 2011, September 22, 2011, January 1-3, 2012,
January 2, 2012 and January 4, 2012) would hurt his chances in the general election. Friess responds by saying: “I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed; we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about; and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s [so] inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” Mitchell says, “Excuse me, I’m just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly.” Think Progress’s Alex Seitz-Wald writes: “Given that [a]spirin is not a contraceptive, Friess seems to be suggesting that women keep the pill between their knees in order to ensure the[ir] legs stay closed to prevent having sex. Conspicuously, Friess doesn’t put the same burden on men.” [Think Progress, 2/16/2012; National Public Radio, 2/16/2012] Friess’s comment draws quick reaction from a number of sources, with many women’s groups expressing their outrage. Santorum quickly distances himself from the comment, calling it a “bad joke” and implying that the media is trying to smear him with it: “When you quote a supporter of mine who tells a bad off-color joke and somehow I am responsible for that, that is ‘gotcha,’” he tells a CBS News reporter. [Washington Post, 2/17/2012] Fox News’s late-night political humor show, Red Eye, features guest host Andy Levy sarcastically speculating that Friess’s joke is part of a “guerrilla marketing” scheme by the Bayer Corporation, which manufactures Bayer aspirin. Guest Anthony Cumia dismisses Friess’s comment by saying that Friess is “an old guy, he’s got old jokes.” [Mediaite, 2/17/2012] The next day, Friess issues an apology on his blog that reads: “To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness. My wife constantly tells me I need new material—she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway—so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs.” New York Magazine’s Dan Amira writes, perhaps sarcastically, that he does not understand why either Santorum or Friess apologized, as he believes Friess stated Santorum’s position on sex and birth control rather clearly. “‘Hold an aspirin between your knees’ is just a more colorful way of saying, ‘just keep your legs closed,’ which is tantamount to ‘just don’t have sex,’” Amira writes. “It’s abstinence, pure and simple. Which is exactly what Santorum advocates. He’s said that unless you’re trying to procreate, you shouldn’t be having sex, and therefore, contraception is ‘not okay.’ He has promised to make this argument to the American people as president. As far we can tell, the only difference between Friess’s bad contraception joke and Santorum’s actual contraception beliefs is an aspirin.” [New York Magazine, 2/17/2012; Foster Friess, 2/17/2012] Friess is often described in the press as a “billionaire,” but both Friess and Forbes magazine say that appellation is inaccurate. [Forbes, 2/8/2012]

Sandra Fluke. [Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images / New York Times]Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh insults Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified in favor of federal law mandating that health care providers pay for contraception (see March 1, 2012), as a “slut” and a “prostitute” who wants the government to pay her for having sex. On his radio show, Limbaugh, who wrongly identifies her as “Susan” Fluke, says: “What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. The johns, that’s right. We would be the johns—no! We’re not the johns. Well—yeah, that’s right. Pimp’s not the right word. Okay, so, she’s not a slut. She’s round-heeled. I take it back.” Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald comments on Limbaugh’s characterization, “While it’s probably not even worth engaging with Limbaugh on the facts, Fluke’s testimony was about a friend who is a lesbian and needed birth control for non-sexual medical reasons, so he’s only wrong about three times over, and offensive many more times over than that.” Seitz-Wald notes that Fluke never discussed her own use, or non-use, of contraception, nor did she allude to her sexual activities at all. [Media Matters, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 3/1/2012]Misrepresentation - Seitz-Wald will note that Limbaugh is deliberately misrepresenting Fluke’s position and the position of Congressional Democrats. “Fluke’s testimony, and the entire contraception debate, is about insurance companies paying for contraception as part of their health coverage, the… way they pay for any other medication, such as Viagra. Morevoer, Fluke’s testimony was not about herself, but about a friend who need contraception to fight cancer and other fellow law students. This conservative narrative, which is pure fantasy, seems to be based on a single bogus article from Cybercast News Service (CNS), which Limbaugh repeatedly cites, with the ludicrous headline, ‘Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate.’” [CNS News, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 3/2/2012]Other News Outlets Join Limbaugh - Other conservative news outlets join Limbaugh in attacking Fluke and other women who use contraception. In the article cited by Limbaugh, CNS’s Craig Bannister says that “sex-crazed co-eds” like Fluke should cut back on the amount of sex they’re having to pay for other needs such as books and food. Fox News’s Trace Gallagher mocks Fluke, saying: “And see, I was gonna go to law school, but I thought all you did was study in law school, right? So, I guess I was wrong on that.” Fox News correspondent Monica Crowley says the government should not pay Fluke and others to have “recreational sex.” CNN commentator Dana Loesch calls Fluke and other women “nymphos” for wanting access to contraceptives, and says Fluke and feminists “support… female genocide.” [Media Matters, 2/29/2012; CNS News, 2/29/2012]Fox Business Commentator: Fluke's Testimony Part of a Pro-Abortion Scheme by House Minority Leader - On Fox Business Channel’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, regular guest Bill Donohue calls Fluke a “little brat.” Dobbs asks Donohue to comment on what he calls Fluke’s demand that she be given free contraception, a mischaracterization of Fluke’s testimony (and one contradicted by the clip of her testimony Dobbs plays before Donohue’s comments). Donohue begins by lambasting Georgetown for having a group called “Hoyas for Choice,” which he calls “Hoyas for Abortion,” but not groups like “Hoyas for Racism” or “Hoyas for Anti-Semitism.” Donohue suggests that the university and Hoyas for Choice raise “the nine dollars a month” Fluke needs for her personal contraception needs, and Dobbs notes that Georgetown is “one of the most expensive universities in the country.” Donohue attacks Fluke for “obviously dressing well” but then asking taxpayers to pay for her contraception and, without basis in fact, for her university education to boot. Why aren’t taxpayers funding his anti-gout medication? he asks. “This is what we’ve come down to in this country,” he concludes. “You have these little brats who come on TV and they testify and they say, ‘I want, I want, I want,’ and somehow I have a moral responsibility? They have a lien on me to pay this? It’s all about getting the Catholic Church, obviously, to pay for their abortion-inducing drugs, which is why we’re having this debate.” Donohue says that Fluke’s testimony is part of a scheme by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “who actually brought her on there to speak,” to force the Catholic Church to amend its position on abortion. [Media Matters, 2/29/2012]'Shockingly Ugly Hatred' - Conservative blogger Charles Johnson, who in recent years has become highly critical of the race- and gender-based rhetoric from the right, writes that the right’s reaction to Fluke constitutes “shockingly ugly hatred,” and says Limbaugh’s attack is “another step into the gutter.” [Charles Johnson, 2/29/2012] Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates agrees with Johnson, noting that Limbaugh is not just an “entertainer,” but a powerful opinion leader of the Republican Party, and says that Limbaugh’s comments are part of what Coates calls “the normalization of cruelty” and “evidence of the lowest aspects of humanity.” [Atlantic, 3/1/2012] Eric Boehlert, a senior writer at the liberal media watchdog Web site Media Matters, calls Limbaugh’s “radio outburst” an example of his “rancid misogyny,” and writes: “[I]t was perhaps the talk show host’s incessant need to bully powerless people from the safety of his studio that was so striking. That, and the glee Limbaugh seemed to take in not only maligning the young woman, but her parents as well. It’s jaw-dropping.” Boehlert goes on to remind readers that Limbaugh is not just a voice on the radio or an entertainer, but “the voice of America’s conservative movement, as well as the Republican Party.” [Media Matters, 3/1/2012]House Democrats Call for Condemnation - House Democrats, including Pelosi, call for Republican Congressional leaders to condemn Limbaugh’s remarks (see February 29, 2012). Statement from Law Student - Fluke will issue a statement repudiating Limbaugh’s rhetoric (see March 1, 2012). Continued Attacks - Limbaugh will continue his attacks on Fluke the next day (see March 1, 2012).

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh spends much of his three-hour show lambasting Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, who testified in opposition to a House amendment that would have allowed health care providers to deny contraceptive coverage and other health care necessities if they had religious or moral objections (see March 1, 2012). The day before, Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who is having “so much sex she can’t afford the contraception” and wants the government to pay for it (see February 29, 2012). Limbaugh begins by saying that Fluke and others who criticized his comments (see February 29, 2012 and March 1, 2012) were having “a conniption fit” that he finds “hilarious.” He offers a compromise, offering to buy “all the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as possible” (see February 16-17, 2012), and says he believes he is being “quite compassionate.” Limbaugh later returns to the topic, saying that having the government pay for contraception is “flat-out thievery” that would force taxpayers to pay to “satisfy the sexual habits of female law students at Georgetown.” He characterizes Fluke’s objections to the House amendment as her saying: “I’m going broke having sex. I need government to provide me condoms and contraception. It’s not fair.… Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex? Have you ever heard of not having sex so often?… Who bought your condoms in junior high? Who bought your condoms in the sixth grade? Or your contraception. Who bought your contraceptive pills in high school?” He says Fluke is apparently “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk.… She and her co-ed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently these deadbeat boyfriends or random hookups that these babes are encountering here, having sex with nearly three times a day.” He advises Fluke that she can get “free condoms and lube” from the Washington, DC, Department of Health. He then says: “So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis (see May 21, 2007 and July 2008), here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” He finishes his tirade by accusing Fluke of being “a plant… an anti-Catholic plant from the get-go” who is working behind the scenes as part of a “Democratic plot” to “create a new welfare program and, at the same time, try to cast Republicans in an election year as anti-female.” Fluke, he says, is “a woman who is happily presenting herself as an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman. She wants all the sex in the world whenever she wants it, all the time, no consequences. No responsibility for her behavior.” He concludes that he, not Fluke, is the victim, and says he is being persecuted by those who wish to see him removed from the airwaves. [Think Progress, 3/1/2012; Media Matters, 3/1/2012; MSNBC, 3/2/2012]

President Obama calls Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law school student who has been subjected to vociferous attacks and personal smears by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and others (see February 29, 2012 and March 1, 2012) after publicly opposing a Republican-backed amendment that would have allowed health care providers and insurers to deny coverage of contraception and other provisions on moral or religious grounds (see March 1, 2012). Obama asks Fluke if she is “okay” after the attacks, thanks her for speaking out on the issue, and tells her that her parents should be proud of her. Fluke takes the call at the MSNBC building in New York, while waiting to be interviewed by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Of the call, she tells Mitchell: “He encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women. What was really personal for me was that he said to tell my parents that they should be proud. And that meant a lot because Rush Limbaugh questioned whether or not my family would be proud of me. So I just appreciated that very much.… He did express his concern for me and wanted to make sure that I was okay, which I am. I’m okay.” She tells Mitchell that the vilification from Limbaugh has been “surreal.” After the call, White House press secretary Jay Carney says Obama made the telephone call because he feels that “the kinds of personal attacks that have been directed her way have been inappropriate. The fact that our political discourse has been debased in many ways is bad enough.” He adds: “It’s even worse when it is directed at a private citizen who is simply expressing her views about public policy.… The president expressed to Sandra Fluke that he was disappointed that she was the subject of these crude—of these personal attacks. I think that it’s fair to say that—reprehensible was my word, but look, these were unfortunate attacks that were leveled against her and the president feels that way.… They were, inappropriate and reprehensible. But the point is the president called her to thank her for speaking out on a matter and doing so with great poise on a matter—on a public policy matter and to express his disappointment that she had been subjected to these kinds of attacks.” [MSNBC, 3/1/2012; Huffington Post, 3/2/2012; CBS News, 3/2/2012] Days later, Obama will tell a Washington Post reporter that he called Fluke in part because he was thinking of his daughters Malia and Sasha. “I don’t know what’s in Rush Limbaugh’s heart, so I’m not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology” (see March 3, 2012 and March 5, 2012), Obama will say. “What I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse.” He says he called “because I thought about Malia and Sasha, and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about; even ones I may not agree with them on.… And I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.” [Washington Post, 3/6/2012] Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-GA) says Obama acted “opportunistically” in making the phone call, stating, “I think the president will opportunistically do anything he can.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/2/2012] Limbaugh continues his attacks on Fluke in the hours after Obama’s telephone call (see March 2, 2012).

Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh issues an apology for his three-day verbal assault on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Fluke testified in opposition to a House amendment that would have allowed health care providers to deny contraceptive coverage and other health care necessities if they had religious or moral objections (see March 1, 2012) and was vilified by Limbaugh (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Limbaugh, echoing claims from his anti-Fluke broadcasts, claims he was merely joking in calling Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” alleging that she wanted the government to pay for her having promiscuous sex, and demanding that she post online videos of the sex he claimed he would be paying for. On his blog, Limbaugh writes: “For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a presidential level (see March 2, 2012). My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.” [Rush Limbaugh, 3/3/2012] Premiere Radio Networks, the subsidiary of Clear Channel Entertainment that distributes Limbaugh’s show, quickly emails the apology to reporters, but initially declines to comment. Limbaugh’s chief of staff Kit Carson refuses to comment as well. On March 4, the network will email a statement by a spokesperson that reads: “The contraception debate is one that sparks strong emotion and opinions on both sides of the issue. We respect the right of Mr. Limbaugh, as well as the rights of those who disagree with him, to express those opinions.” The company refuses to divulge the names of the largest advertisers on Limbaugh’s show, nor how much revenue Premiere is losing by the advertiser defections. A Twitter account called “Stop Rush” posts: “I think this attempt at damage control labeled as an apology actually makes things worse. You know what Rush’s so-called apology means? Your efforts at delivering real accountability are working!” MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell posts on Twitter, “Lawyers wrote that apology.” [New York Times, 3/3/2012; Associated Press, 3/4/2012] Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald notes that Limbaugh conflates contraception with governmental purchases of sneakers, and continues to imply that Fluke and other women advocate for contraception coverage solely for their own personal sexual activities. Seitz-Wald recalls that Fluke testified to Congress on behalf of a friend who needed birth control pills to manage polycystic ovarian syndrome. [Think Progress, 3/3/2012] Liberal blogger Kaili Jo Gray writes in response: “Shorter Rush: ‘I’m sorry if any sluts were offended by being called sluts, but if they’d stop being sluts, I wouldn’t have to call them sluts.’ Obviously, the campaign to demand that Rush’s sponsors pull their advertising from his show is working” (see March 2, 2012 and After). [Kaili Jo Gray, 3/3/2012] Others agree. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the Democratic National Committee chair, says, “I know he apologized, but forgive me, I doubt his sincerity, given that he lost at least six advertisers.” And Eric Boehlert of the progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters says he doubts the apology will “stop the pressure that’s being applied to his advertisers.” In an email, Boehlert says, “His comments were so egregious, naturally advertisers will have doubts about being associated with Limbaugh’s brand of hate.” [New York Times, 3/5/2012] It is possible that Limbaugh issues the apology in hopes of fending off a lawsuit by Fluke (see March 2, 2012) and/or to stop advertisers from removing themselves as sponsors of his show. Regardless, the exodus will intensify, and will spread to advertisers asking that their ads be removed from Limbaugh’s political talk-show colleagues as well as from his own show (see March 9, 2012).

On ABC’s This Week morning talk show, an array of political commentators from around the political spectrum unite in condemning radio host Rush Limbaugh’s three-day tirade against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke over her stance on contraception coverage (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Perhaps the most surprising statements come from conservative columnist George Will, who not only slams Limbaugh’s comments, but criticizes Republicans for not coming out more strongly against Limbaugh (see March 2, 2012, March 2, 2012, and March 2, 2012). “Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh,” Will says. “[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff. And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.” Will says that it is the duty of Republican leaders to keep Limbaugh in line: “It is the responsibility of conservatives to police the right and its excesses, just as the liberals unfailingly fail to police the excesses on their own side.” ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd agrees, saying that Republican leaders fear criticizing Limbaugh because they believe what Dowd calls the “myth” of Limbaugh’s powerful influence among Republican voters (see January 1993, October 16, 2001, December 17, 2004, July 2008, and January 28-29, 2009). “I think the problem is the Republican leaders, Mitt Romney and the other candidates, don’t have the courage to say what they say in quiet, which, they think Rush Limbaugh is a buffoon,” Dowd says. “They think he is like a clown coming out of a small car at a circus. It’s great he is entertaining and all that. But nobody takes him seriously.” Peggy Noonan, an advisor to former President George H. W. Bush, calls Limbaugh “crude, rude, [and] piggish” on the same broadcast (see March 4, 2012). [ABC News, 3/4/2012; Think Progress, 3/4/2012; Los Angeles Times, 3/5/2012]

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh attempts to explain his three-day tirade against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012) and expand on his apology for his comments (see March 3, 2012). In the process, he insults “liberals” and continues his attack on Fluke, though he now reframes his attacks on Fluke in political terms and avoids the personal defamation in which he had previously engaged. “I want to explain why I apologized to Sandra Fluke in the statement that was released on Saturday,” he says. “I’ve read all the theories from all sides and, frankly, they are all wrong. I don’t expect—and I know you don’t, either—morality or intellectual honesty from the left. They’ve demonstrated over and over a willingness to say or do anything to advance their agenda. It’s what they do. It’s what we fight against here every day. But this is the mistake I made. In fighting them on this issue last week, I became like them. Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words [‘slut’ and ‘prostitute’] to describe Sandra Fluke. That was my error. I became like them, and I feel very badly about that. I’ve always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program. Nevertheless, those two words were inappropriate. They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. I do not think she is either of those two words. I did not think last week that she is either of those two words. The apology to her over the weekend was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do, and in so doing, I became like the people we oppose. I ended up descending to their level. It’s important not to be like them, ever, particularly in fighting them. The old saw, you never descend to the level of your opponent or they win. That was my error last week. But the apology was heartfelt. The apology was sincere. And, as you will hear as I go on here, it was not about anything else. No ulterior motive. No speaking in code. No double entendre or intention. Pure, simple, heartfelt. That’s why I apologized to Sandra Fluke on Saturday, ‘cause all the theories, all the experts are wrong.… Now, all of this is what I should have told you last week, ‘cause this is what happened. I use satire. I use absurdity to illustrate the absurd. The story at the Cybercast News Service characterized a portion of her testimony as sounding like (based on her own financial figures) she was engaging in sexual activity so often she couldn’t afford it. I focused on that because it was simple trying to persuade people, change people’s minds.” He continues attacking Fluke for her attempts to persuade Georgetown University to include contraception in its student health insurance coverage. He calls her a “longtime birth control activist” who went back to law school in order to engage in demagoguery at Georgetown over the contraception issue, and questions the testimony she was prepared to offer before a House committee in support of insurer-paid contraception coverage (see March 1, 2012). “In fact, she told stories less about birth control as a social tool (which was, of course, the left’s true agenda) and more about birth control as a medication for treating other conditions, such as pregnancy,” Limbaugh says. “To the left, pregnancy is a disease. If you’re listening to me for the first time, you may say, ‘Well, that’s crazy.’ It’s not. They treat pregnancy as a disease for political purposes. All of this, folks, is political. Sandra Fluke gave vague examples based on unnamed friends who she says couldn’t afford birth control to treat medical conditions they had, since Georgetown University wouldn’t pay for them. Georgetown paid for all of their other medical treatment, but it wouldn’t pay for the birth control pills that these doctors prescribed should they be necessary—or so she says. We still don’t know who any of these friends of hers are, these other women, and we don’t know what happened to them. Her testimony was hearsay, and it was unprovable.” He says to Fluke, “If birth control insurance is important to you as an enrolling student, and you find out that Georgetown doesn’t offer it, you might want to attend (or work at) a school that isn’t run by Catholics.” Fluke and others “intentionally target schools like Georgetown to advance an agenda of ultimately forcing them to abandon their religious beliefs,” Limbaugh says. “All of this is to serve Obama’s agenda (see March 2, 2012). The agenda he worked all summer on. He abandoned it only when America stood up, united, and this said they would not tolerate tearing down religion to increase government’s control over our lives.… They [Democrats] use Sandra Fluke to create a controversy. Sandra Fluke used them to advance her agenda, which is to force a religious institution to abandon their principles in order to meet hers.” [Reuters, 3/5/2012; Rush Limbaugh, 3/5/2012] Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald observes, “While this is perhaps some progress from Limbaugh’s overtly sexist slurs of last week, it’s hardly the words of a man genuinely sorry for his ad hominem attacks on a women’s health advocate.” [Think Progress, 3/5/2012]

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA), considered the leader in the primary race for the Republican presidential nomination, again refuses to comment on the controversy surrounding talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s three-day vilification of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012). Romney, like many Republicans, has refused to publicly criticize Limbaugh over his actions (see March 2, 2012 and March 2, 2012). Asked during a campaign stop about his position on Limbaugh, he says, “My campaign is about jobs and the economy and scaling back the size of government and I’m not going to weigh in on that particular controversy.” [Boston Globe, 3/6/2012] Some prominent Republicans, such as Romney’s fellow candidate Ron Paul (R-TX—see March 4, 2012), former Bush White House advisor Peggy Noonan (see March 4, 2012), Senators John McCain (R-AZ—see March 5, 2012) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AZ—see March 6, 2012), and former Bush speechwriter David Frum (see March 5, 2012), have condemned Limbaugh’s rhetoric. Two days ago, the former head of a conservative women’s organization predicted that few Republicans would step up to publicly criticize Limbaugh (see March 4, 2012).

Author and investigative reporter Cara Hoffman writes an op-ed for the liberal news and opinion Web site TruthOut and her blog concerning the controversy surrounding talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s recent invective-laden tirades against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, March 2, 2012, and March 5, 2012). Fluke drew Limbaugh’s ire by advocating for insurer-paid contraception as part of broader health care coverage (see March 1, 2012). Hoffman writes that Limbaugh is correct in stating that “single, educated women” like Fluke and author Tracie McMillan, whom he excoriated after his attacks on Fluke (see March 6-7, 2012), “are trying to take away his freedom.… Limbaugh’s freedom has gone unchecked for a long time; his freedom to deliver a constant stream of invective and hate speech, the foundation of which is misogyny. So his anxiety is well justified. People once had the freedom to lynch, terrorize, and sexually assault African Americans until that freedom was taken away. They had the freedom to deny them an education, a vote, the right to marry whom they chose, until that freedom was taken away. They had the freedom to mock and use racial epithets and hate speech in all forms of media until that freedom was taken away.” Hoffman writes that Limbaugh’s listeners are in a similar predicament, facing the loss of their “freedom” to exercise what she calls their hatred for women: “[f]reedoms they had before women were allowed to go to school, or to vote, before rape shield laws existed, before domestic violence laws changed. They know as long as there is no level playing field, as long as women are kept second class citizens, the freedom to discriminate, exploit, intimidate, and reap the benefits of the economic and social freedoms that come from creating an underclass remain.” Hoffman concludes: “Young single educated women and men, working class women and men, married women and men are at the forefront of dismantling your freedoms, Mr. Limbaugh. Rest assured we will be taking them. You won’t have to wait much longer.” [TruthOut (.org), 3/8/2012]

Premiere Radio Networks logo. [Source: Premiere Radio Networks]Premiere Radio Networks, the company that distributes radio shows by an array of right-wing hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, announces that 98 out of 350 advertisers, including a number of major corporations, have requested that their ads only appear on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).” The Premiere email says, “Those are defined as environments likely to stir negative sentiment from a very small percentage of the listening public.” Limbaugh vilified law student Sandra Fluke for three days on his radio show (see February 29, 2012, March 1, 2012, and March 2, 2012), and though he issued an apology on his Web site (see March 3, 2012), advertisers have dropped their sponsorship of his show in increasingly large numbers (see March 2, 2012 and After) following a widespread outcry of anger against Limbaugh’s rhetoric. Now, large advertisers such as Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm, McDonald’s, and Subway Restaurants have asked that their advertising be removed from Premiere’s right-wing talk shows. Industry insider Valerie Geller tells a reporter: “I have talked with several reps who report that they’re having conversations with their clients, who are asking not to be associated with specifically polarizing controversial hosts, particularly if those hosts are ‘mean-spirited.’ While most products and services offered on these shows have strong competitors, and enjoy purchasing the exposure that many of these shows and hosts can offer, they do not wish to be ‘tarred’ with the brush of anger, or endure customer anger, or, worse, product boycotts.” For nearly two decades, Limbaugh has been at the forefront of the movement that insisted conservative talk shows on radio and television must counterbalance what he and others have termed the “liberal bias” of the mainstream media (see Summer 1970, October 7, 1996, October 9, 2002, October 8, 2003, December 2004, December 14, 2005, December 19-20, 2005, December 21, 2005, May 2008, October 23-24, 2008, February 24, 2009, and August 11, 2009). After cable television and Internet access fragmented the market, “niche” audiences such as Limbaugh’s have provided the most reliable listenership and viewers, and the highest comparative ratings. However, the demographics are changing for right-wing talk. Limbaugh, Levin, Savage, Hannity, and others generally rate best among aging white males, a demographic that is less profitable than it used to be. Now, the prize advertising demographic is women aged 24 to 55, a demographic that has been leaving the right-wing talkers in steadily increasing numbers, and now makes up the forefront of the angry pushback against Limbaugh over his public savaging of a young female law student over a political disagreement. Some, including Limbaugh’s brother, right-wing talk show host David Limbaugh, have complained of a “left-wing jihad” against conservative radio hosts. However, as reporter John Avlon writes: “[T]he irony is that the same market forces that right-wing talk-radio hosts champion are helping to seal their fate. Advertisers are abandoning the shows because they no longer want to be associated with the hyperpartisan—and occasionally hateful—rhetoric. They are finally drawing a line because consumers are starting to take a stand.” Moreover, the advent of social media has made the response time for protesters and angry consumers almost immediate. Geller says: “In the past, a letter, petition, or phone campaign took a few days to put together and longer to execute. But now customers [listeners] can instantly rally using Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging to make their displeasure with a client, product, or service known immediately. These movements can happen fast.” Avlon concludes: “When big money starts shifting, it is a sign of a deeper tide that is difficult to undo, even if you are an industry icon like Rush Limbaugh. It is a sign that the times are changing. Let’s hope that what emerges is an evolution of the industry, away from stupid, predictable, and sometimes hateful hyperpartisanship and toward something a little smarter and more civil.” [Radio-Info.com, 3/9/2012; Daily Beast, 3/10/2012]

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