Rep. Cohen Compares Republicans To Nazis and Calls Repeal Arguments to “Blood Libel”

It is beginning to seem like “blood libel” has become the contemporary term of art. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) took the floor last night to compare the Republicans to Nazi propagandist Goebbels and their arguments to “blood libel.” Since Sarah Palin was just skewered over the use of the term, it will be interesting to see the reaction to this reference occurring just days later over national health.

Cohen stated “They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing, blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing,”

Cohen also noted:

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it–believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover.”

Moving from the Holocaust to health care is a bit too much of a jump for many people. We have repeatedly seen objections to the use of Nazi references by politicians.

Here Cohen wanted to refer to the tactic of repeating a lie so often that it becomes accepted as the truth. He could have done that without the Nazi reference. The “blood libel” reference was just recently denounced by the the Anti-Defamation League in relation to Palin. One would think that they would have to do the same with Cohen for consistency purposes.

In the meantime, CNN has taken a commentator to task on the air for simply using the term “crosshairs.”

I am not sure that the mere reference to crosshairs deserves such a mea culpa on the air.

What do you think?

Source: MSNBC

Jonathan Turley