Moratorium

Yes, Dan Rather's performance in the forged document scandal was shameful. But to compare him to a Nazi minister of propaganda is overdoing it.

Yet that's what Thomas Sowell does in his latest column. He awards Rather the "Joseph Goebbels award" with Ted Koppel a close second. Rather might have done a rotten job on a ridiculous story, but do we really need to compare him to a Nazi?

Pundits can't wait to talk about Goebbels and the "Big Lie" technique these days. (Incidentally, it seems the actual phrase comes from Hitler in Mein Kampf, not Goebbels.) In the past year or so, they've brought up the "Big Lie" regarding Iraq--Al Qaeda ties, attacks on Iraq--Al Qaeda ties, the Swift Boat ads and countless other subjects.

Most of these supposed "lies" are actually political disagreements. But even when people get stuff completely wrong, and even in the rare case when they know they're wrong, I think it's time we stopped comparing political opponents to Nazis. Especially when there are real enemies out there who may actually deserve the comparison. Let's try to keep it down to McCarthyism or less from now on.

Pajama Guy responds: I'll support the moratorium, though not without first pointing out that the left throws around comparisons to Hitler far more than the right. Here's a pretty good compendium of Bush=Hitler citations alone.