Monday, March 24, 2008

Kate, the Nazis and softwood lumber

As I read various posts around the blogsphere about the Nazi comments at Small Dead Animals, widespread condemnations, and justifications from her supporters that it was all just some misunderstood philosophical point she was making, I’m reminded of an incident from May of 2006.

It was the Liberal leadership race, and during a leadership forum at the LPC(O) convention in Toronto, Bob Rae made the following comments about softwood lumber:

“…it’s true for softwood lumber which is an issue that I’ve been working on for the last little while. Now Mr. Harper might like to say that’s a wonderful deal. Don’t forget, Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich, and held up a piece of paper, and said he had peace in our time. He was wrong. So is Mr. Harper. Really wrong.”
While Bob was clearly making an analogy to appeasement, and wasn’t trying to compare the Americas to Nazis, it was a very poorly chosen analogy that didn’t go over well in the room. I noted, and condemned, it in passing in my blog recap of the speeches. A few days later, Warren Kinsella picked-up on and condemned the comments. And so did, you guessed it, SDA:
Now, don't expect any brouhaha in the media over this. There's a difference between comparing the leader of our largest trading partner to Adolf Hitler, and say - a Conservative MP alluding to Supreme Court Justices as "playing God". That difference is, of course, that Bob Rae is running for the Liberal leadership.
And so did her army of flying monkeys in a rather lengthy comment thread.

Now Bob’s comments, while poorly chosen, pale in comparison to SDA’s recent post. Yet she, and her supporters, who were so quick to condemn Rae, seemingly have no problem with her comments because she was making a philosophical point.

I guess the nuance is lost on us mere mortals.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

4 comments:

Red Tory said...

Heh.

One of her flying monkeys over at Jason's tried to make the case that KKKate can't possibly be a Nazi because in the past she's called (via Oriana Fallaci) "liberals" and "progressives" who were opposed to the IDF's heavy-handed retaliation in Lebanon, Nazis.

The logic escapes me.

Maybe everyone should just stop calling each other Nazis. The term is rapidly becoming meaningless, which is unfortunate.

Walks With Coffee said...

You are over thinking this.

When she says those guys didn't do it (when they did) she is making the argument to absolve them.

Saskboy said...

Great comparison. She does as the Liberals, and condemns them for doing it short years ago.

I think Walks with Coffee may be onto something. A great many of the defenders have said as much too, implying that it wasn't Nazis operating the gas chambers.

Barcs said...

"Great comparison. She does as the Liberals, and condemns them for doing it short years ago."

Sorta like how many liberals defended Bob Rae years ago (even if some condemned his remarks) and are now condemning the tories for defending one of their own??

But the post itself is there to spark debate and a hope that people learn something (no doubt she is doing some learning too, because very few people can surf the internet and not find something they didn't know. I have alot of respect for bloggers that go in search of stories)

In the end, Jeff is absolutely right, she should be pushed about a very poor choice of words in a title.

(The "Tolerant" left; Red Tory 5:32: "KKKate")