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.

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