valdivia - June 23, 2010 | 12:56 pm · Link

And: apparently infrastructure projects are just like Auschwitz.
warning: National Review link

handy - June 23, 2010 | 1:03 pm · Link

Thomas Sowell wonders out loud whether the US is on a “slippery slope to tyranny.” Now. One of the biggest apologists for the Cheney power grabs the last eight years has the courage to ponder that right now. These people are shameless.

El Cid - June 23, 2010 | 1:09 pm · Link

Well, you libruls don’t want to admit it, but he has a point. One time Robert Mugabe said he was doing stuff because of an economic crisis, and Obama said he was doing stuff because of an economic crisis, so obviously we’re on a slippery Limpopo to becoming Zimbabwe.

Redshirt - June 23, 2010 | 1:10 pm · Link

You know who else spoke eloquently? Satan, that’s who.

kommrade reproductive vigor - June 23, 2010 | 1:11 pm · Link

First they came for the multibillion dollar oil companies, and I said nothing because …

r€nato - June 23, 2010 | 1:12 pm · Link

@beltane: a useful kook, since he is a ‘black conservative “intellectual”’.

Asshole - June 23, 2010 | 1:14 pm · Link

Obama and Hitler both drew large crowds when they spoke in Berlin, so I can see where he’s going with this thing.

SpotWeld - June 23, 2010 | 1:16 pm · Link

Once again I pause to find myself wondering, if I were to step back to the 1850s, the 1950, or the 1970 would I be seeing political commentary this utterly wacked out?

Or is it the usual selfishness of the now that makes our current situation magnified beyond that of other generations.

Who am I kidding, the Texas GOP just called for gays to be thrown in jail. The right wing is devloving before our eyes.

beltane - June 23, 2010 | 1:18 pm · Link

@QuaintIrene: This means that Churchill and Roosevelt were more like Hitler than the actual Hitler was. This would somehow make Dwight Eisenhower the most Hitlery Hitler of them all.

Thinking about Sowell’s writing makes me want to go read some WG Sebald just to purify my brain.

Brachiator - June 23, 2010 | 1:18 pm · Link

Let’s see, now. Sowell claims,

At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law “for the relief of the German people.”

The preamble to the Constitution begins,

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare ...

Ipso facto, the Founders were Hitler.

Calouste - June 23, 2010 | 1:20 pm · Link

The law that gave Hitler his dictatorial powers, the Enabling Act formally known as the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation”, was passed in reaction to a terrorist attack on a national symbol, not in reaction to an economic crisis.

Draw any parallels you would like. As well as any conclusions about the intellectual honesty of Thomas Sowell.

cleek - June 23, 2010 | 1:22 pm · Link

Sowell knows his audience: conspiracy-minded morons who can’t get enough of the sweet sweet demagoguery.

dj spellchecka - June 23, 2010 | 1:23 pm · Link

does sowell think that our CURRENT congress would pass a bill that give obama hitler-super powers? hell, they won’t even extend unemployment at the moment…something that WOULD be “for the relief of the people.”

Asshole - June 23, 2010 | 1:24 pm · Link

You know who else had partisan, wingnut-welfare pseudointellectual fluffers ready to decry his political enemies as treasonous extremists in the most acrimonious terms possible? Hitler, that’s who.

Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 1:24 pm · Link

What will be absolutely awesome is when we’ve got President Palin running the show in 2012 and she orders the firebombing of “7th Generation” while claiming President Obama really did this exact same thing just two years earlier.

So I can sympathize with people suggesting that Presidential Powers need to be constrained. So long as said people were in comas all during ‘06-’08, when Bush continued his reign of lawless asshattery and the Democrats didn’t do a fucking thing to stop him.

All this constitutionalist bullshit has always been about conservatives claiming they can do whatever the hell they want without obstruction. I just wish the Democrats would finally stop letting their opponents play by their own made up set of rules time and time again.

Comrade Javamanphil - June 23, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link

Normally this would get some news coverage but the media has its hands full today assessing what Obama means by choosing the tie he did for his news conference. Palin’s twitter feed needs monitoring. Also.

Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link

@Bob: Well, Obama’s hands weren’t exactly tied. The DoJ has already launched criminal investigations. The Interior Department is still in charge of leasing for future wells. Obama has a number of levers he could use to make BP’s life more difficult.

And if Congress felt it needed to change the $75 million cap law, it could roll that back retroactively. That’s what BP really wants to avoid. $5 billion / year for four years is an absolute steal for BP if it can avoid future damages and litigation.

Josh - June 23, 2010 | 1:28 pm · Link

JGabriel: Goebbels, having studied U.S. p.r. theories, was the Big Lie advocate, not Hitler; Hitler might well have believed much of what he was saying. The comparisons of Bush to Hitler had to do with authoritarian government and, most significantly, preventive war.

cleek - June 23, 2010 | 1:29 pm · Link

@SpotWeld:

if I were to step back to the 1850s, the 1950, or the 1970 would I be seeing political commentary this utterly wacked out?

hell yes.

politics has never been a gentlemanly occupation.

Mark S. - June 23, 2010 | 1:32 pm · Link

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

Well, maybe, but let’s see if Obama could get $20 billion from a company that didn’t cause a New Jersey sized oil spill.

Is it just me or has Sowell become really intellectually lazy the last couple of years. I’m not saying he was ever some modern day Aristotle, but the last few things I’ve read of his have had about as much depth as a dry riverbed.

JGabriel - June 23, 2010 | 1:33 pm · Link

@Josh:

Goebbels, having studied U.S. p.r. theories, was the Big Lie advocate, not Hitler; Hitler might well have believed much of what he was saying.

Thank you, Josh, for improving the analysis and strengthening the comparison between Bush and Hitler, with Rove & Cheney in the Goebbels role.

.

kommrade reproductive vigor - June 23, 2010 | 1:34 pm · Link

@El Cid: I hope he attributed the Healthy Eating Programs = HITLER theory to Jonah Goldberg.

Punchy - June 23, 2010 | 1:36 pm · Link

McChyrstal sacked.

kay - June 23, 2010 | 1:39 pm · Link

@Bob:

Let’s not forget that BP could have told Obama to stuff it and Obama could not have done anything to make them cough up their $20 B.

It was public opinion that made them pay the $20 B, Obama just used it to our advantage.

Exactly. An ordinary expectation of BP acting responsibly.

Jeez. What if that takes off? No wonder conservatives are (laughably) pretending Obama called on some extra-constitutional power? What if huge business interests actually have a duty to the public when they harm people and places that isn’t court-ordered, but that the public recognizes, and comes to expect?

Scary stuff, if you’re an irresponsible actor.

Indpls - June 23, 2010 | 1:40 pm · Link

Lemme see. Hitler had a birthday. I have a birthday. Connect the dots.

geg6 - June 23, 2010 | 1:41 pm · Link

@Randy P:

Is that an improvement?

I am certainly not on the Patreus lovin’ bandwagon, but we certainly never heard of him being as bone-headed stupid and arrogant as McChrystal has shown himself to be nor that he is a proponent of torture and murder as a first option nor that he supported any sort of cover-ups (such as the Tillman case) like McChrystal.

Militarily, I don’t feel qualified to judge. But as far as ethics and understanding of propriety and chain of command goes? Yes, Patreus is a huge improvement.

Redshirt - June 23, 2010 | 1:41 pm · Link

Gosh, I hope McChrystal goes on the Fox News Circuit to tell us all how terrible this all is, and how it portends things that happened in another country, at another time. IT COULD HAPPEN HERE TOO (under a Democract president, of course)!

Bulworth - June 23, 2010 | 1:44 pm · Link

Obama’s unConstitutional and unAmerican sacking of McCrystal is a Chicago-mob style shakedown. Discuss.

gnomedad - June 23, 2010 | 1:47 pm · Link

@Brachiator:

why couldn’t our first black president by like good ‘smart’ men like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, i’d even settle for them 2 un-colleged educated guys: Glenn Beck & Rush Limbaugh!

Yes, why couldn’t our first black president have been Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh?

KG - June 23, 2010 | 1:50 pm · Link

@MattF: I think it’s partly due to wingnut welfare and partly due to the nature of the job. You have to say stuff that will get people’s attention and if you say the same thing over and over, people start to ignore you, so you have to up the ante from time to time. One of my favorite Sowell columns was a fairly recent one where he tried to argue against equality before the law by pointing out that Michael Jordan was better at basketball than he was, so therefore equality was dumb because he could never be equal to MJ. He never stopped to consider that MJ got good because he devoted himself to the game the way Sowell apparently devoted himself to economics, or that equal opportunity does not actually mean equal outcomes, just that everyone have a chance to pursue their life as they see fit. And I say this as someone who really wanted to be the next Magic Johnson, but who stopped growing at 6’1” and couldn’t jump more than about a foot off the ground.

@Zifnab: This is nothing new at all. It started with Hamilton vs Jefferson (who changed his view just a bit when he was sworn in as president) and continued with Jackson and then both Roosevelts and Truman (Youngstown Steel is probably my favorite constitutional law case on executive power) and then really ramped up with the passage of the War Powers Act. I’m all for reining in executive power and have been for a long, long time, but that would require Congress to take more responsibility… and well, I just don’t see that happening. Plus, it would take quite a while to convince the American people that, no, really, the government isn’t just the president, that there really are two other co-equal branches.

NonyNony - June 23, 2010 | 1:52 pm · Link

@SpotWeld:

Once again I pause to find myself wondering, if I were to step back to the 1850s, the 1950, or the 1970 would I be seeing political commentary this utterly wacked out? Or is it the usual selfishness of the now that makes our current situation magnified beyond that of other generations.

Don’t kid yourself – for most of American history our political world has been wacky. Everyone wants to believe there was a “Golden Age” when our politics was driven by Pure Reason, but even in the days immediately following the Revolution there were many examples of opportunism and exploiting ignorance to be had.

Our political discourse is severely skewed by the WWII and post-WWII generations. Television and radio journalism changed the perception of newspapers in the US because the FCC controlled the airspace and required broadcasters via the Fairness Doctrine to be impartial politically and there were strict controls on ownership of those stations. That changed the political discourse for a brief stretch of time, but it was an artificial change. All it did was push the crazy away from the major news outlets. Until the 80s when that all changed.

I’d actually argue that overall it’s a good thing. The bad thing is that prior to WWII people knew and expected their newspapers to be full of propaganda and they adjusted accordingly. To a couple of generations who were raised to expect their media to be “unbiased” and to “report both sides” of any issue, the shift back to a biased news media as the status quo has been a jarring one. Hopefully one we’ll adjust to as the older generations die off.

fucen tarmal - June 23, 2010 | 1:59 pm · Link

@Bulworth:

lets wait til fall 2011, in the lead up to the republican primaries when the issue can be fully considered as it relates to whether or not Mccrhystal is the the right man to be president.

ed drone - June 23, 2010 | 2:12 pm · Link

@Indpls:

Hitler had a birthday. I have a birthday.

Merkwurtig! Sie ist Hitler? Mich auch! Sehr merkwurtig!

Ed

(using up his tiny store of Deutschen sprache all in one comment)

BC - June 23, 2010 | 2:41 pm · Link

I really don’t understand why the Republicans are so upset about this $20 B escrow account, other than it may mean that Obama wins and they can’t have that. They keep talking about the need for some court to determine damages, as though the only way we can pay compensatory damages is if a court orders it. But they also want to cap punitive damages when they put on their tort reform hats. If the trial lawyers weren’t so reliably Democratic, I would have to think they were trying to protect the trial lawyers. I have just about come to the conclusion that what has their panties in a bunch is that the people of the Gulf may be recompensed from a fund that no middleman has been able to rake some of the money from. The man in charge is, as I understand it, going to be paid for his services by BP directly and not from the escrow fund. (But if this escrow fund proves to be popular, the Republicans have another meme going that they thought the whole thing up and Obama stole their idea . . .)

mantis - June 23, 2010 | 3:09 pm · Link

@BC:

I really don’t understand why the Republicans are so upset about this $20 B escrow account, other than it may mean that Obama wins and they can’t have that.

They aren’t really upset about it. Well, the idiot rank and file who believe every word they hear on talk radio might be, but they don’t actually think about what they believe or say. The ones telling them what to do aren’t the slightest bit upset about it*, but they are required to turn every event into an opportunity to attack the president. If BP had not set aside an escrow fund for those whose livelihoods are being destroyed by the leak, they simply would have attacked him for being soft on BP and screwing over the fishing and tourist industries. It doesn’t need to be consistent, or even make sense, it just needs to be an attack.

• This doesn’t apply to a few Republicans who only represent oil interests, not their constituents (Barton, et al.), and are simply looking out for their supporters. They know very well that when BP declares bankruptcy they will be off the hook for compensation, and they would prefer that BP get away without paying any damages whatsoever.

Patriot 3 - June 23, 2010 | 3:14 pm · Link

@mantis: “When Adolf Hitler” becomes “It was a dark and stormy night” there is no false equivalency for opening prefixes to good solid disinformation articles http://www.sadlyno.com/archive.....C+No%21%29

SRW1 - June 23, 2010 | 3:24 pm · Link

@Patriot 3:

“I was born in Duesseldorf and that is why they call me Rolf.”

jrosen - June 23, 2010 | 3:43 pm · Link

If I remember my history aright, there was an article in the Weimar Constitution that gave the chancellor the power to govern by decree in grave emergencies. (I think it was Aritcle 47, but I haven’t time right now to chase down the reference.) Mr. Sowell (no surprise here) has his history wrong. The emergency invoked by Hitler was not the Great Depression (that was what helped put him in the Chancellor’s office, through a political deal) but the Reichstag Fire. The Constitution was never revoked, so as a legalism, Hitler actually governed under its provisions until the day he blew the back of his head off in his bunker.

Sinclair Lewis (I believe) predicted that if fascism came to America, it would be wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible. I’d amend that to say should that happen that “intellectuals” like Mr. Sowell will have played roles analogous to the likes of Spengler, Heidegger, and de la Garde (a name not known any more, but one of the intellectual pre-justifiers of Nazism).

Another role might be like that of the Communists, who attacked the fragile German democracy from the left as enthusiastically as did the Nazis from the right (in spite of Jonah Goldberg , they had different goals and different supporters, even if for a time they had a similar strategy), on the theory that “After Hitler, us”, according to the predictions of Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by Stalin.

They were right, of course, with the little matter of 60 million dead and Europe in ruins; seems like a rather high price to achieve the GDR and the Stasi. Analogies have limits…otherwise they would be identities. But the Firebaggers might give it a little thought. Personally, I am an immoderate moderate.

mantis - June 23, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link

@Church Lady:

Yeah, Doug, keep telling yourself that comparing a President to Hitler is something new. I take it you were in a coma from January 2001 to January 2009.

Tell us, how many congressmen compared GWB to Hitler on the floor of the House or Senate?

kay - June 23, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link

@BC:

I really don’t understand why the Republicans are so upset about this $20 B escrow account

They’re upset about it because it’s a huge company on one side, and individual’s harmed on the other, and for once, the individuals on the other side are likely to get a fair shake.

Isn’t it just incredible? This fund is going to be administered by a mediator. He’s going to hear claims and administer damages.

Conservatives have been jamming this same system down individual’s throats for the last 30 years. Except in that set-up, the consumer was “negotiating” with some huge lawyered-up entity, hoping for some crumb from the corporate table. .

They’re full of shit. On each and every issue, the stated “principle” magically disappears when a moneyed interest is threatened.

Dispute resolution outside of a court is just fine if some powerful entity holds all the cards. If it’s a level playing field? They don’t want to play. Too risky, for the oil company.

olo - June 23, 2010 | 9:38 pm · Link

But don’t forget, someone compared Bush to Hitler in the comments of a Daily Kos diary in 2005.

That’s right & I’ll never apologize.

Steeplejack - June 23, 2010 | 11:13 pm · Link

@beltane:

I love W.G. Sebald! My favorite is The Rings of Saturn (link), a weird, dream-like novel that is almost impossible to describe to people when I’m badgering them to read it. But I also like On the Natural History of Destruction (link), a collection of four essays that includes “Air War and Literature”:

Sebald criticizes the silence of postwar German literature on the starvation, mutilations and killings caused by Allied bombings. The essay provoked a major controversy when it appeared in Germany in 1999. Some commentators were dismayed that Sebald chose to revisit those difficult times and to attack, with his full ironic and sardonic powers, a number of revered figures in German literature. Sebald was dismayed that his comments provoked an outpouring of support from those who could talk only about German suffering and Jewish conspiracies. But only at the very end, almost as an afterthought, does Sebald place this suffering in historical context, as the consequence of German policies of total war and the Holocaust. “Air War and Literature” is an important but flawed effort by a writer who always demanded unflinching engagement with the past. (Publishers Weekly, 2003)