GOP congressman compares Obama to Hitler. How bad an idea?
Rep. Randy Weber (R) of Texas compared President Obama to Hitler in tweets condemning the president's choice not to attend an anti-terror march in Paris.
Rep. Randy Weber (R) of Texas compared President Obama to Hitler in tweets condemning the president's choice not to attend an anti-terror march in Paris.
So a US congressman is comparing President Obama to Hitler, kind of. Maybe it鈥檚 more accurate to say he鈥檚 invoking Hitler in a tweet that mentions the current occupant of the White House as well.
At issue in this contretemps is the failure of the White House to dispatch Mr. Obama, or Vice President Joe Biden, or any other top US official to Paris to join other world leaders at Sunday鈥檚 anti-terror march.
Here鈥檚 what Rep. Randy Weber (R) of Texas said on his Twitter feed Monday: 鈥淓ven Adolph (sic) Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn鈥檛 do it for right reasons.鈥�
For Representative Weber, this kind of inflammatory stuff is nothing new. He鈥檚 referred to Obama as a 鈥渟ocialistic dictator."聽 Last January, prior to the State of the Union he tweeted that he was awaiting the 鈥淜ommandant 鈥� in chief.鈥� (Actually, he misspelled that as 鈥淜ommandant 鈥� in chef,鈥� but people were pretty sure who he was talking about.)
So in that sense the Hitlerian comment should come as no surprise.
But it鈥檚 still a faux pas, in this sense: It鈥檚 never good to refer to the leader of the Third Reich in any current political controversy. His evil was sui generis. Nothing else since comes close.
Any point a politician tries to make will generally get lost in the uproar over invoking the architect of the Holocaust.
Plus, what鈥檚 Weber saying here? Yes, Hitler went to Paris after the Germans conquered France in World War II. He wanted to glory his victory. So that鈥檚 a 鈥渨rong reason,鈥� meaning it was a bad thing, but Obama going would have been a good thing? 鈥淩ight reasons鈥� were involved, apparently. So Hitler shouldn鈥檛 have gone, but Obama should have, so why bring up Hitler as an example of an action the US president failed to do?
Or something like that. It doesn鈥檛 unpack well.
That鈥檚 what we mean when we say we鈥檙e not sure Weber is really comparing the two men. He鈥檚 just sort of letting them swim around in the same comment so as to try and make Obama look worse.
As Washington Post political analyst Chris Cillizza tweeted about the controversy, 鈥淭he Hitler comparison. Always a loser.鈥�
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