He said WHAT!!?

[Clio the Leo]

I always have MSNBC running in the background but, apparently, I was too busy arguing with you all last week to notice this.

PLEASE Keith! I love ya, I respect your right to disagree and love your fire but PLEASE! For the love of all that's decent, STOP with the SHARK JUMPAGE!!!

Gibbs On Olbermann’s Nazi Appeasement Tax Compromise Comparison: ‘Stop.’
by Tommy Christopher | 3:33 pm, December 13th, 2010

During his patented Special Comment segment last week, Countdown host Keith Olbermann showed his displeasure with President Obama’s compromise on the Bush Tax Cuts by comparing it to Nazi appeasement. At Monday’s White House briefing, I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if the White House had any reaction to the comparison. Gibbs responded that he doubted the President had heard Olbermann’s remarks, reiterated that the White House thinks the compromise is a good deal, and addressed the appeasement charge. See Gibbs’ response after the jump.

I was more interested in Gibbs’ thoughts on such heated opposition rhetoric coming from someone who’s so influential with the President’s base, but Gibbs opted to teach Keith Olbermann a quick mini-course on Godwin’s Law: (From C-Span)

(video below)
http://www.mediaite.com/online/robert-gibbs-on-keith-olbermanns-nazi-appeasement-tax-compromise-comparison-stop/

Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies)<1><2> is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1989 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."<3><2> In other words, Godwin put forth the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all discussions—regardless of topic or scope—inevitably end up being about Hitler and the Nazis.

[redirish28]

1. IMHO Keith was absolutely right. By Obama doing this deal with

Republicans he is setting up some dangerous situations which will see the distraction of the middle class in this country.


Maybe I'm too close to the situation but He is absolutely right. In 10 years we will have the working poor and the VERY wealthy with no help if the Corporate wealthy fire a person or any help for anyone who may need help with food stamps or medical attention or road being taken care of or a lot of things.

[qazplm]

2. whether his concern is right

the Nazi appeasement rhetoric is not right.

It's ridiculous.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Nazis? Really?.........

..... Seriously?

Part of me wants to visually remind you what the Nazis did to the Jews, gays and others in the concentration camps but ya know ........ Nazi's should never really be used when trying to make an argument.

[redirish28]

7. Yes, The short answer.... I see the Corporate wealthy america really

screwing the working class so badly that they might basically stop just short of killing outright. They are strangling the working/middle class out of EVERYTHING.


Look at job wages now at days. Most families now at days need both mom and dad working. IN SOME CASES both mom and dad working 2 jobs!


What's going to happen at the end of 10 years when they start cutting unemployment, medicare and all the other programs that have helped 98% of the countries population!

What this is setting up is just as bad! People not being able to take care of themselves! People not being able to provide basics like food shelter and clothing.

You can laugh and say I am being dramatic. BUT WHAT THE HELL WAS BERNIE SANDERS DOING FOR 8 1/2 HOURS ON FRIDAY but outlining the needs and the uses of the wealthy/corporate america!

Everyone is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO afraid to bring a nazi comparison to the table BUT look at what the Nazi's did to the Jewish population before the concentration camps. They destroyed the way a Jewish individual can provide and meet BASIC human needs! It is happening this this country slowly!

[Clio the Leo]

9. Some of us at DU use Hyperbole like Michelangelo used paint....

.... I'd be able to appreciate it as the art form that it is if it wasn't so ........ wrong.

[chimpymustgo]

50. Yes, you do. Especially defending our Reagan-loving President who is DESTROYING the

middle class.

[dbmk]

40. Does it have to involve Nazis and millions of dead Jews?

In order to fit the pattern of negotiation?

It is used as an example of negotiation - not to equate anyone to Nazis or Nazi appeasers.

Theres probably a fancy term for this kind of arguing, that I don't know. But I know its intellectually dishonest.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I like Olbermann, too, but not so much

that I capitalize "He," like he was Jesus. Also, KO has often busted on Glenn beck, quite rightly, for using Nazi analogies to refer to the Obama administration. So how does he justify doing the same thing now? There are no reasonable analogies to Hitler and the Nazis -- they are in a class of evil by themselves, and to compare anybody to them is to trivialize the enormity of that evil. KO ought to know better.

[Clio the Leo]

6. The REAL Worst Persons in the World......

.... were the Nazis.

[Aramchek]

5. it is by no means Nazi appeasement. that is a shameful comparison

[redirish28]

10. It is not! Before the Nazi's did the worse they started taking basic

human rights from Jewish citizens.


Jewish people had to work certain jobs, They could only shop certain stores at certain times.



What is happening now is the basic hand tying of working class america. Making them pay more taxes than the rich.... What about those 99ers who can't get unemployment benefits? How do they provide food shelter clothing for themselves? Without those benefits and programs how do people survive? How many charitable organization have closed the doors that would have helped people like the 99ers because not enough money is coming in because it is basically going to either taxes or loopholes that give fat cat corporation and WALL STREET and RICH Americans more money in their pockets!


What happens in 2 years when Gods willing we are on this board angry because they raised the retirement age to 70 OR have cuts so many people out of social security programs!

GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES AND REMEMBER HISTORY BEFORE THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS!!!!

GET OFF THE HOLIER THAN THOU ROSE COLOR GLASSES AND SEE HOW THEY ARE SLOWLY CUTTING PROGRAMS THAT HAVE HELPED PEOPLE SURVIVE AND LIVE THE PAST 50 YEARS IN THIS COUNTRY!

[Clio the Leo]

11. there's a reason why the Nazis are regarded as LESS honorable than ...

...17th century Virginia tobacco plantation owners.

Ya know .... that whole genocide thing and all.

[redirish28]

14. And that is what will basically happen in this country ONLY is it Classocide!

BUT WHAT DO I KNOW I"M SOOOOOOOOOOOODUMB SORRY I THOUGHT AND REMEMBERED HISTORY!


You know there are many ways to kill a person without acutally murdering them outright

We are going to see people suffer and die because they don't have money!

BUT YOU ARE ABOLUTELY RIGHT !!!!!

[Clio the Leo]

19. .....

http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/google-laptops-taking-away-caps-lock/

[dbmk]

41. The comparison is about the negotiation pattern

Not about actual Nazis.

But I guess thats a lot harder to drum up outrage over.

[boppers]

27. "the distraction of the middle class"

Amusing typo, there.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jenmito]

8. K&R up to 0. I can't BELIEVE people are unrec'ing this. Keith has been SO wrong on this. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. It's wrong only when their guy, Glenn Beck, does it.

When our guy, Olbermann, does it, it's fine. In fact, it's awesome and brilliant.

:sarcasm:

Actually, it's not fine. It's hysterical and ridiculous. Not every policy we don't like is a slippery slope down the abyss to Auschwitz. Get a grip, people. You too, Keith Olbermann.

[jenmito]

13. Exactly...

I don't know what's happening to this place (DU).

[redirish28]

15. YOU NEED TO REMEMBER HISTORY BEFORE THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS!!!

How the jewish people slowly lost the ability to care for themselves forced into the Ghettos that where basically hell holes. The lack of food and shelter and warm and clothing!

[jenmito]

17. You need to stop being so paranoid. You sound like a Glenn Beck viewer. n/t

[redirish28]

18. Whatever! I'm sooooo wrong on this board BUT when you see things

slowly disappearing remember these post!

[jenmito]

23. My grandmother has friends who have numbers on their arms from the Holocaust...

and her son, my father, thinks Keith jumped the shark on this, too.

[redirish28]

31. My wife has a friend whose Great Grandmother has numbers on her arm as well

she doesn't believe Keith jumped the shark. Interesting how two different have 2 different view points.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. You might want to read a little history yourself.

The Nazis' actions against the Jews, starting with the Nuremburg Laws, was intended to scapegoat a specific ethnic group. Hitler used existing, underlying antisemitism, and blamed the Jews for a variety of Germany's problems -- Germany had come out of WWI in bad shape, with rampant inflation. The Nazis needed a scapegoat, a group that was already unpopular, as a means to unite Germany against this "enemy" and restore pride in its "Aryan" heritage. The Nuremburg Laws attempted to define what constituted being Jewish, and went on to make it unlawful for Jews to engage in certain professions. The growing discrimination against Jews (and later, certain other ethnic groups) ratcheted up with Kristallnacht and ended with the Holocaust - the extermination of some 3 million people because of their ethnic identity. There is NO comparison or analogy to the current economic situation. NONE. Yes, the banksters are screwing the middle class, and yes, a lot of people will suffer. But nobody's going to be herded onto railroad cars and sent to concentration camps and gassed by the thousands. To suggest that somehow this is the same is not only absurd, but deeply disrespectful to the Nazis' victims.

[redirish28]

32. Don't need to read it when My wife's friend's great grandmother has

told us the events as she saw them unfold. She may be old but her mind is still sharp.

[vaberella]

30. So what you're telling me is that concentration camps are on the way?! n/t

[redirish28]

33. Go ahead and be snarky. No need for concentration camps when

you take away a person's abaility to provide themselves with basics such as food clothing and shelter.


But I'm over reacting .


I'm done talking. I'll just watch the events as they unfold.

[vaberella]

54. I'm not being snarky. I'm asking a legitimate question.

Because you're running on the same gamut as the Republicans were on health care---where Obama is set to kill our grandmothers. When you go that far, that's what you're doing. You're no different than those freaks, you're just spinning it differently.

[dave29]

34. Yeah, my grandmother remembers it well.

She is infuriated whenever people make these kinds of comparisons. She has worked her whole life to teach people about the Holocaust.

She was President of Hadassah in Texas in the 60's.

Please do not assume you can speak for other people, because some of them still walk amongst us.

[dbmk]

43. Except Glenn Beck has been arguing that Obama is a Nazi

..or leading the US on that path.

Olbermann compared negotiation tactics/results. Appeasement as a concept.
Not as a tool to paint someone as a Nazi appeaser.

Huge chasm of difference.

[flamingdem]

16. As someone else said KO jumped the shark, the carp, the octopus, the salmon, and the herring too! nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. I think he jumped the beluga whale on this one.

[flamingdem]

25. Lol! caviar nt

[frazzled]

22. Jon Stewart 1, Keith Olbermann 0

Ba da bing, ba da boom.

If the call to end hysterical hyperbole, overreaction, and to return to just plan sanity ever found its perfect example, this was it. Shame on Keith.

It's why I added a signature line for the first time.

[Union Scribe]

24. He can be over the top, but is usually right underneath the hyperbole

[dbmk]

45. The only reason this is considered hyperbole..

.. is because the poster child of appeasement negotionation tactics, involves Nazis and such horrible consequences.

Makes any attempt to debate whether the pattern is the same supremely open to intellectually dishonest outrage, sadly.

[FrenchieCat]

26. Guess KO is gonna live up to the reputation that he has been given.

Sad to hear, but I understand.

[saras]

28. Godwin's law is for obscure dweeb discussions

The problem with Godwin's law is that it's a reasonable indicator of irrelevancy in a vi/emacs discussion, or a debate about obscure points of the Cthulhu mythos. In American politics, forbidding it is not too unlike forbidding the mention of corporations.

[superduperfarleft]

35. I hereby pledge not to call anyone a Nazi unless

(a) they show an affinity towards blatantly anti-semitic and white supremacist ideology or (b) they have participated in genocide against millions of jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. in concentration camps.

Everyone else: congratulations, you may be wrong, you're not a Nazi.

Seriously, everyone needs to get a fucking grip.

[Ninga]

36. I don't know what KO was thinking, or even if he was thinking at all......but

this topic is about to sink like a lead balloon as Christmas gets closer and other distractions take its place, and the bill will pass with one days fanfare and it will be on to the next train wreck Congress will create.

I don't like KO's analogy one bit....but the end result is that it has kept people talking, which in this day and age of short attention spans, says something.

[Bluenorthwest]

37. The concept of 'Goodwin's law' is a vile thing.

To allege that mention of our actual history, recent history, is off limits is a horrible disservice to the millions murdered, millions more displaced, entire communities destroyed. While internet bullies invoke some made up 'law', good people all over the world have sworn to never, ever forget what happened.
So you and Gibbs and others can do that if you wish, but I personally swore to hold that memory, while holding a hand tattooed by those Nazis you claim can not be mentioned. My word to her is beyond any silly kid stuff you internet steamers are into. Goodwin's 'Law' is an reality meme that fits neatly with the belief over reality theological purity mindset of the President and his administration.
Mention Goodwin, and I spit on the ground and start talking about piles of corpses made by the 'Gott mit uns' set.
Those who wish to deny the lessons of history are hell bent on repeating that history. The anti-equality social purists in the administration probably do get uncomfortable when mention is made of what other purists have done with the same dogma they espouse, the anti-gay religious forces in that time killed untold numbers of my people. Because God was in the mix, and they felt 'one man, one woman' was God's will. They were purists, who felt that if you were not just like them, you should not have rights. The more mitigated religious purists of today might not mention executions here, but they sure do in other nations, they are out to repeat that which you and your Goodwin claim should not be mentioned. The silence you seek would help to make it happen again, which is why any mention of those vicious, repressive memes must be answered by good people who will never forget, no matter how the dogmatists push for another round of pogroms.
Silence=Death Knowledge = Life

[That Guy 888]

38. "Godwin's law" itself has "jumped the shark"

Do you really believe what the Chicago school of economics "perfected" in Central and South America would never be used against Americans?

[dbmk]

39. While not to scale..

.. "Peace in our time" was exactly what I thought when I saw Obamas press conference on it. With a slightly disappointed sarcastic smile on my face.

While little in the situation at hand are comparable to the situation in 1930's in terms of scale and consequence, the parallels in message and opponents behaviour is there.

It is intellectually dishonest to warrant that pattern recognition requires the exact same scale, circumstances or consequences. Or argue that it belittles the victims of those original circumstances and consequences.

Is Stockholm syndrome only applicable to hostages at bankrobberies in Stockholm?
Is the word crusade deeply offensive to use about anything else but the actual Crusades on the 11th through 13th centuries? Think of the victims!

Give me a break.

(Note: I did think "Peace in our time" - but looking it up now I realised the actual phrase was "peace for our time". Learn something every day.)

[oasis]

49. Obama=Neville Chamberlain. That's how I see KO's comparison.

Knowing KO, there could be no other explanation.

And he's correct.

[montanto]

42. Yeah, I don't care for the "X=Hitler" rhetorical strategy either.

Except when DUers call me Hitler.

[dbmk]

46. And thankfully noone used that strategy in this case.

When debating appeasement as a strategy, Chamberlain is _the_ example. Even if not to scale, it illustrates the concept in an easily understood manner.

You can recognize a pattern without claiming that X=Y.

[Phx_Dem]

44. Keith has now become the Glenn Beck of the far left.

Apparently it's okay for progressives to call people Nazi's, but when Republicans do it, it's bad.

Keith has lost is mind, as well as his credibility.

[dbmk]

47. When did he call anyone a Nazi?

In this case at least?

[GoCubsGo]

48. He didn't.

I suggest those who say he did should go back and listen to Keith's comment, rather than basing their opinions on some asshole from gossip blog, Mediaite. Y'all do understand that Mediaite is run by Dan Abrams, who thoroughly dislikes Keith, don't you? I'm sorry that Gibbs got suckered into this clown's BS, because Keith likened anyone to a Nazi.

On edit: My "y'all" isn't aimed at you, dbmk, as you seem to be one of the few here who seem to understand what was really said.

[Phx_Dem]

52. Sorry, he said "Nazi appeasement." That's mucn better.

Like I said, Glenn Beck.

[dbmk]

53. Oh noes! He said "Nazi appeasement"!

Don't actually know if he used those exact words. But thats miles beside the point anyways.

Because that argument is so utterly intellectually dishonest in this case.

Glenn Beck equates Obama with Hitler.

Keith Olbermann likens the negotiation tactics/situation of Obama to Chamberlains singularly best example of appeasement politics.

I sincerely hope you can see the difference. Hint: It is not the Nazi part thats important in the last one.

But the connection is convenient it seems. If anyone are disrespecting the victims of the nazis it is the ones using that (in this case) irrellevant connection to generate outrage.

[MadHound]

51. And under the bus he goes,

Banished like all the rest who have the courage to stand up to the president when the president is doing wrong.

[Supersedeas]

55. Godwin's law applies...again.