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July 25, 2008 5:45:13 PM CDT

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Politicians, Give Hitler a Rest

Posted May 20, 08 1:16 PM CDT in World,  Politics,  US 

(Newser) – Politicians just can’t stop invoking Hitler to make their points, complains Anne Applebaum on Slate. President Bush did it last week, saying negotiating with “terrorists and radicals” was tantamount to 1930s Nazi appeasement. It was a ridiculous statement, “giving tactical choices a phony moral grounding.” But that’s par for the course for such analogies, which never fail to cheapen debate.

Everyone from Vladimir Putin to Madeleine Albright has trotted out the Third Reich. It seems virtually any issue can lend itself to a Nazi allegory, but it’s rarely a useful comparison; instead, it ends discussions, lending them a combative tone laden with inflexible principle. “Seventy years have now passed,” Applebaum writes. “Let’s put the ghosts of Munich to rest.”

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A student carries a sticker depicting US President George W. Bush as Adolph Hitler.   (Getty Images)
Adolph Hitler stares into the distance in this file photo.   (Archive Photos)
Can't politicians give poor Hitler a rest?   (Getty Images)
President Bush was criticized last week for an apparent jab at Democrat Barack Obama in which he compared politicians who would talk to "terrorist and radicals" to 1930s Nazi appeasers.   (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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George W. Bush  • Nazi  • Adolf Hitler  • appeasement


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