Bush != Hitler

I support President Bush. I think he is a good president who is mostly doing good things. Despite left-wing stereotypes of right-wing exclusivity and zealotry, most of my friends are actually Democrats or liberals who do not support Bush (I'm in academia). That's fine with me. These people are mostly very young, and I believe that some of them have the makings of true conservatives later in life. Besides, for all my pontificating here, I'm OK with the fact that there are people who disagree with Bush's policies or even people who think Bush is just stupid. This is partially because we won in November (ha ha), but mostly it's because I believe that America wouldn't be America without dissent. That is, genuine and valid dissent. What is not valid -- and this truly disgusts me -- is the ceaseless "Bush = Hitler" meme. Not only is it stupid, arrogant, and flatly wrong, but its invocation shows a profound ignorance of history and lack of respect for the millions of people who were murdered by a truly fascistic regime.

Victor David Hanson has penned an excellent article on why the Hitlerian comparison is so disturbing.

Excerpt:

Is there a danger to all this? Plenty. The slander not only brings a president down to the level of an evil murderer, but -- as worried Jewish leaders have pointed out -- elevates the architect of genocide to the level of an American president. Do the ghosts of six million that were incinerated -- or, for that matter, the tens of millions who were killed to promote or stop Hitler's madness -- count for so little that they can be so promiscuously induced when one wishes to object to stopping the filibuster of senatorial nominations or to ignore the objection of Europeans in removing the fascistic Saddam Hussein?

There is something profoundly immoral for a latte-sipping, upscale Westerner of the postmodern age flippantly evoking Hitler when we think of the countless souls lost to the historical record who were systematically starved and gassed in the factories of death of the Third Reich.

Read the whole thing.

[Hat tip: Kim du Toit]