In recent weeks, we’ve seen several people come under fire for comparing their political rivals to unsavory characters. There was the radio talk show host who likened Barack Obama’s oratorial skills to those of Adolf Hitler; I believe another one compared both Obama and FDR to Hitler. Then there’s this press release from Lou Barletta, who’s running for Congress against incumbent Paul Kanjorski. The latter is quoted as saying, “What David Duke was to civil rights, my opponent has done that with immigration. He’s used that issue the same way Duke used the civil rights issue.” Barletta, needless to say, takes exception to that.
And, of course, every so often some person or group compares some political policy to the Holocaust and ends up apologizing under pressure.
It’s getting to the point that no one can say that anything is like anything else anymore.
What the critics fail to realize (probably purposefully) is that in any comparison, there is a degree of similarity and a degree of dissimilarity. The statement “A is like B” is not the same as “A is identical to B,” because the former implies that A and B are dissimilar in some ways. So you can compare person X with Hitler, David Duke, or anyone else, and as long as you’re clear that you are not saying the two are identical–as long as you don’t include the bad qualities in the list of similarities–the comparison is perfectly valid.
Of course, the critics hope we don’t realize this and will continue to pounce on their opponents whenever they make these kinds of comparisons. Just another example of how our public discourse has run amok.
