Forward: “Bush Campaign Refuses To Pull Nazi Web Ad”
Listed in: Other Domestic Policy, NJDC News, Press Releases
Washington, DC: The Forward reports in tomorrow's edition that "President Bush's re-election campaign is refusing to withdraw an ad containing Nazi imagery from its Web site, despite severe criticism from Jewish organizations and from the Republican chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. ...Several groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and the Zionist Organization of America, publicly criticized the Bush campaign and called on it to withdraw the ad." Spokespersons for the Bush campaign have falsely alleged that Democrats have been using the kind of inappropriate Holocaust comparisons portrayed in the Bush ad; Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt denied that the GOP engages in such Holocaust comparisons, telling the Forward, "No attacks have ever been launched by anyone associated with the Bush campaign that have the slightest similarity to those attacks [by Democrats]."
Directly contradicting the words of Bush's spokesperson, The Forward goes on to note, "Conservative Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly recently compared both filmmaker Michael Moore and satirist Al Franken to the Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels, according to transcripts featured at the liberal watchdog Web site mediamatters.org. Right-wing radio host Michael Savage also compared Moore to Goebbels and jokingly equated the title of Hitler's autobiography, 'Mein Kampf,' with President Clinton's new autobiography, 'My Life,' in a June 22 broadcast, Media Matters reported."
"It is incredible that the Bush campaign -- even as they are using this vile Holocaust video to draw visual comparisons between Democrats and Hitler -- would deny the constant drumbeat of inappropriate Holocaust comparisons by top conservatives and other Bush backers," said National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "The Forward article itself puts the lie to Steve Schmidt's ridiculous claim that the Republican Party does not engage in these egregious comparisons. And many more examples abound -- including Republican Representative Tom Cole's assertion in March that voting against President Bush is like voting for Hitler, and White House insider Grover Norquist's October comparison of the estate tax and the Holocaust.
"Today's GOP has a very real and growing problem with using Nazi figures and the memory of the Holocaust for its own political purposes. One need look no further than the Bush campaign's Internet home page to see this," Forman added.
To view the Bush campaign's video using Hitler imagery and sounds, go to:
http://www.georgewbush.com/
...and select "latest videos" from the middle of the main screen. To read the full text of the article in The Forward, click here.
