Hitler being used in anti-Bush campaign
By JANINE ZACHARIA
WASHINGTON
Adolf Hitler has turned up in the US presidential race.
On Friday, the campaign of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, US Senator John Kerry, lambasted US President George W. Bush for incorporating into an anti-Kerry campaign video portions of an ad posted by a liberal advocacy group, which likened Bush to Hitler.
The Bush-Hitler comparison was part of an ad posted months ago on the website Moveon.org, an internet advocacy group, which is not affiliated with Kerry but is working for his election. Moveon.org held a contest for advertisements about Bush and posted many of them on the website, including the Bush-Hitler ad.
The Bush campaign video, being broadcast on its website,
www.GeorgeWBush.com, is entitled the "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed." It strings together clips of an angry Vice President Al Gore screaming, "How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison." Kerry is shown using an expletive.
Former Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean shouts, "I want my country back."
Hitler images are interspersed twice. Third Reich war crimes are likened to Bush's foreign policy.
At the end of the video, a graphic reads, "It's a time for optimism, steady leadership, and progress."
A Kerry spokesman called on the Bush campaign to immediately remove the Hitler images from its website and apologize for using them. "The use of Adolf Hitler by any campaign, politician or party is simply wrong," Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement.
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman, in response, said he agreed with that assessment.
"These ads, like much of the hate-filled, angry rhetoric of Kerry's coalition of the Wild-eyed, are disgusting," Mehlman said in a statement.
The statement listed comments by Kerry supporters, which he said Kerry should have spoken out against.
Mehlman wrote: "Why has John Kerry not denounced billionaire and Democrat(ic) Party donor George Soros for comparing the Bush administration to Nazis. Soros stated, 'When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' It reminds me of the Germans. It conjures up memories of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ('The enemy is listening')."