Some Republicans are expressing outrage today, claiming that Vice President Joe Biden suggested they were Nazis in a recent fundraising letter. Given Biden’s well-known tendency toward gaffes, I was not particularly surprised but it turns out to be entirely manufactured. Biden sent out a fundraising letter warning that the GOP will mount a “blitzkrieg” against Democrats in the fall. Since the Germans used the “blitzkrieg” in World War II and many Germans were Nazis, Biden is accused of calling Republicans Nazis.
Bidens message sent by the DCCC said “As things heat up, you can expect House Democrats will be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and tea party disruptions.”
Kevin Smith, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner, objected “When will Democrats learn that invoking the Nazis’ crimes against humanity in a political debate is simply inappropriate?”
As a military history nut, I have to object. The blitzkrieg (or lightning war) was simply a military tactic using mechanized forces to move quickly into enemy territory. By the way, the term predates World War II in military articles from the 1930s. Indeed, one reference is found in a book by Fritz Sternberg, a Jewish Marxist political economist from 1939: Die Deutsche Kriegsstärke (German War Strength). Sternberg believed that Germany would have to carry out a Lightning War because of its inability to sustain a long-term worldwide conflict. The tactics were contained in an influential book Achtung – Panzer! by Heinz Guderian and was ultimately incorporated into training for the command for armored forces of the Wehrmacht known as the Panzerwaffe. Hitler later saw a demonstration of the existing blitzkrieg tactics and adopted them for his forces. So at most (even if one puts aside the common usage of blitzkrieg, the GOP could charge that Biden suggested that they were Guderians.
By the way, according to this claim, Nazis are running amok in sports (including basketball, football, and other sports), ad campaigns, and yes politics. Indeed, the word “blitz” is the shorter version of the original terms used to mean “an intense campaign” as in a heavy use of advertisements. In football, it is another term for a “red dog” or the “sudden charge upon the quarterback by one or more of the linebackers or defensive backs when the ball is snapped.” That’s a lot of Nazis.
Indeed, Boehner himself has used the term as in this interview:
Indeed, we’ve been here before. Shortly after Labor Day, the president gave an address to Congress designed to resuscitate his proposed government takeover of health care. That speech was followed by an all-out media blitz.
Before we order a new denazification program, we may want to reconsider the historical and linguistic basis for this latest controversy.
Source: NY Daily News
CCD: My point was that Democratic party leaders say the same thing as Matthews (that is why I also linked to the article about Clinton).
Nancy Pelosi implied the same thing Matthews implied with her comment about the killing of officials in San Francisco years ago. I had another link by a democrat saying the same sort of thing but left it out because I understand that if you have too many links your comment doesn’t get posted.
Funny link to the NYtimes, by the way. It’s reflective of everyone in the democratic party. They are too evil to know they are evil.
Obama, like Hitler and Stalin haven’t a clue that something is amiss with their moral condition (depravity).
This is how people end up snuffing out the lives of nearly 50 million tiny, but genetically distinct human organisms in the womb and pat themselves on the back for it.
This is how one justifies holocaust and considers themselves the good guys.
Or it is how one legalizes theft and calls it taxation.
Sane people would rather be stupid than evil.
I agree that corruption is a problem. I am an enthusiastic gardener and I compare corruption to weeds. Which increase greatly and fast. I am simply trying to make the best of things.
And that’d be your opinion, kay. Such as it is.
Trash needs to be taken out wherever found in the system. Garbage in equals garbage out. And the trash pile starts on K St. and runs all the way to Pennsylvania Ave.
If you don’t think most (and I do mean most, as in all but a handful) of Congress haven’t sold out to corporate interests and aren’t complicit in the ongoing crime scene that is Washington D.C.?
Then you simply aren’t paying attention.
Follow the money.
It has corrupted both major parties and every level of government, regardless of party affiliation.
The operative definition of productive in the context of your usage is “3 a : yielding results, benefits, or profits b : yielding or devoted to the satisfaction of wants or the creation of utilities”.
One cannot solve a problem without identifying the problem and its parameters.
Which means, in context, that your comments about productivity are unproductive as they ignore and/or apologize for both the disease(s) affecting the system, its causes and its symptoms.
Dear laughing
you write “surely you realize that pretty much everyone in Washington is “simply inappropriate” and deserving prison time?” That attitude isn’t constructive.
Dear Kevin Smith,
When will the GOP learn that the Constitutional damage done by the Bush Criminal Administration and the whitewash flacks like you do for their war crimes, crimes against American citizens and “crimes against humanity [perpetrated for the personal financial gain of the Bush and Cheney families] in a political debate is simply inappropriate?”
Dear Obama,
When will you learn that not restoring the rule of law and protecting traitors in the previous administration is “simply inappropriate?”
Dear Lady Justice,
Even though you are supposedly blind, surely you realize that pretty much everyone in Washington is “simply inappropriate” and deserving prison time?
Dear GOP,
If the jackboot fits, wear it.
Dear DNC,
Pot? Meet kettle.
Yeah, at the GOP quarters we know the saying well. I suppose should be the motto….
Whats that saying, if you feel it know it and touch it, you might be it?
Kucinich 2012
“He doesn’t have movie star looks, but he has the best ideas. And his wife is hot enough for both of them.”
Hmmm.
Maybe this is why I’m not in advertising.
Jill:
isnt it more a function of the good ole boy syndrome? You hang around someone too long and ideas commingle and you start seeing the other guys point and thinking he isnt so bad and pretty soon you have dems voting with repubs and vice versa.
Rather than familiarity breeding contempt it ends up being one big frat party paid for by our nickle and both parties use us as the bank.
Quit electing the best looking, smoothest talking person in the party to run against the other parties best looking, smoothest talking person and maybe we will have better government.
Jill once again has illustrated what’s wrong with partisanship.
It defines your world like blinders define the world of a horse in servitude.
I look at this as more propaganda. I see that Republicans and Democrats function as one party with two names. They play, “good cop/bad cop”, yet looking at their actual policies, those remain well coordinated, designed to benefit the ruling elite.
Here is one glaring example. How many times has Cheney gone on TV to justify torture? Obama would come out decrying the use of torture. But who is being prosecuted for torture and have we stopped torturing? Didn’t Obama look like a really great guy when he said torture was wrong? Didn’t Cheney look bad to the Democratic base? But what has changed? Actually, something has changed. Torture is now becoming part of our law where before it was “legally justified” in secret.
The tea bag movement appears when necessary and disappears when not needed much like the terrorism orange and yellow alerts. The idiot who made the weapons of mass destruction ad is despicable. But by focusing on this ad, what are we missing? We miss the press giving us an accurate picture of the current weapons used on civilians in our war called, “battlefield earth”. If you really read up on these weapons, would you be happy your money went to their creation and deployment. Why isn’t that information readily available so that people could understand and decide if that’s where their tax money should go. What would happen if Democrats realized it wasn’t just Republicans who financed and allowed the use of these weapons? Would people start thinking about a third party candidate? They might.
The govt. is a master of propaganda. It’s how Obama got elected and how he is able to work with his brothers and sisters in the Republicat party to get their agenda done. They have been efficient and skilled in getting whatever they wished. “Good cop/bad cop” is and old one, but it’s still working just fine.
I think the whole idea that DOJ imprisons PRO SE litigants such as myself for non criminal acts is a NAZI idea. Of course, this occurred during the Bush administration but the Obama administration has ratified this idea. I am not sure how far up in the administration this ratification goes or whether the lower ranks are winging it. Furthermore, I think that PRO SE access to courts is the foundation of democracy and that it is also a vital element of equitable access to courts even when lawyers are employed, i.e. people can’t manage or trust their lawyers if they can’t fire them. From what I know, if there were PRO SE access to courts rights in Germany, the Holocaust would have been averted. I envision the US as promoting PRO SE access in the Mid-East as an alternative to war. Before I got married, I had a long term romantic relationship with the son of an Auschwitz survivor. His dad was in Auschwitz for 5 years, 40 of his relatives were killed, and his mom spent years hiding in a crawl space (fed and protected by Christians). My boyfriend announced his intention to talk to every Congressional representative about justice for Nazi war criminals. I thought that was impractical and convinced him instead to organize a letter writing campaign. It must have been 1976 that I wrote a flyer and we sent it to every U.S. synagogue suggesting that they get their congregations to write to Congress in support of legislation proposed by Elizabeth Holtzman. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rosenbaum.html
I have been a registered Democrat my whole life. I held a Dem precinct meeting in my home and was really interested in the party platform. I went door to door for Al Gore. I donated to Obama’s campaign and I was a self appointed blogger for Obama. I went out of my way to defend Obama and also Michelle on various websites I was frequenting. My theory was that preaching to the converted is pointless so I sought out websites where my message took some selling — WSJ etc.
As long as you are reading this, I am really curious what you think of my analysis of the First Amendment’s application to the question of taking pictures of law enforcement officers acting in capacity.
Nicely put and explained Mr. Turley. Thank you!
CCD,
As ever, one lives to be of service.
And take a Valium®
“Anosognosic” SCORE….You’re on fire BIL.
Tootie, please help yourself here.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/
Stow it, theocratic partisan hack. Chris Matthews represents exactly one person: Chris Matthews.
The Prof is 100% correct about the meaning and usage of blitzkreig. Sie haben keine Deutschen und sie Englisch ist als twisted als Sie denken. And you know nada about strategy or tactics either.
However, you tea bagger parade around with lovely signs like the one this clown is carrying. Oh, and you’ll notice his nuanced understanding of the word “fascist” is just about as cogent as yours Tootles.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M9hOm1mBVk&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Now why don’t you tell us how much football is a Nazi game since “blitz”, one of the favorite plays in the game, is simply short for “blitzkreig” and how this is some kind of liberal or DNC ploy to ruin your propaganda defined little theocratic bigoted world.
You are truly an anosognosic. Except in your case, the likely cause isn’t a head injury, but rather willful stupidity: a choice to be an ignorant puppet.
No, no, no. You don’t get away with this one.
With democrats, words ARE indicative of actions. Democrats tell us so.Democrats continually remind us that words are indeed artifacts or tangible items that are evidence of acts.
So the use of the word blitzkrieg IS a Nazi reference.
We know this because Democrats tell us so. Democrats play fast and loose with ideas and since they have NO moral anchor except the wild fantasies of their depraved and senile imaginations, they continually advocate those things in the short term (to hurt their opponents) which then in the long term wind up attacking themselves.
Karma bites.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100416/D9F4EPUO0.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2010/03/24/chris-matthews-accuses-republicans-criminal-incitement
Then there is the hysteria about Palin using a target, blah, blah, blah. And Palin using the words “reload” and “aim”.
Democrats are getting to be as stupid as republicans, which means they are at the end of their rope.
Oh oh…what does that mean?
Biden is psychic … first blitzkrieg launched