Moveon has posted a response which says they should have done better screening and points out:

Contrast this with the behavior of the RNC and its allies when supporters of President Bush used TV ads morphing the faces of Sens. Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Max Cleland (D-GA) into that of Osama Bin Laden during the 2002 Senate races.

MoveOn put the ads on their website. These were apparently put there by MoveOn staff. These are big media files, not a simple comment section.

MoveOn should have forseen this, and pre-screened the ads for that. They were already apparently screening them for other things.

MoveOn was in fact sponsoring this foolishness on their website. There's nothing deceitful here. They put something really STUPID on their website, and the RNC is breaking it off up in them. Ha, ha.

They'll know better next time.

I don't think Bush is anything like Hitler. Hitler was much smarter.

The Bush/Hitler comparison is specious - Hitler was democratically elected.

Yeah, see, you left wing haters go on and on and on with the Bush/Hitler stuff just like these comments above from Misters Larkin and Gutman, but then whine like Brian when when you get called out on it.

This is not just one or two people saying something out of line with the group dynamic. How many of our pinkos here at Blogcritics have NOT gone of on a Bush/Hitler tirade?

Usually the more high profile outlets such as MoveOn try to suppress any direct documentable expression of this kind of stuff- not because it's not how their supporters think, but because they know how it looks. They screwed up in this case by accidentally letting a couple of people say what many of their supporters really think.

This might be very emotionally satisfying to your angry, wounded childish souls, but does not much impress the adults who have to be concerned with actually protecting the country.

You can't expect to have bunches of your people talking this kind of childish trash and NOT have the Republicans rub your faces in it.

In short, please do keep up the Bush/Hitler thing. I encourage you to exercise this free speech right. Shout it all day and all night at the top of your lungs right up through election day. See where it gets you.

I think Al is the one who's just like Hitler. Both a bunch of windbags.

this 'left wing hater' stuff is a scream.

8 years of clinton and he was called every name in the book.

somehow, pres. bush is 'special' and deserves none of it.

So you approved of it when it happened to Clinton?

nope. just the hypocrisy.

Oh, you approve of the hypocrisy?

are we in a fellini movie?

Don't get snippy with me because you approve of hipocrisy. That's just how I read your reply.

This is an exerpt of what I wrote on my blog earlier today.

Rampaging across Europe in an effort to cleanse populations and take over countries is just a little bit different than taking directed shots (justified or not) at two countries in the Middle East. Putting people in concentration camps and eventually to death because of their religion and/or ethnicity is a little different than taking terrorists and other suspected terrorists and putting them in a military prison.

Exaggerating is certainly a good way to get your point across I guess, but you must be careful who you use as a comparison. People are not going to just buy the fact that Bush is like Hitler. Bush is not very popular, but the level of hate and fear that people reserve for a monster like Hitler is much different. If you exaggerate your point too much the meaning is lost just as easily as if you don't press your point well enough.

I don't really care that this outrages Republicans. This, in my opinion, is not a partisan thing. I expect that Jewish groups will be outraged and I think this should be offensive to lots of people regardless of party affiliation. If you think about it, they are using the horrible things that Hitler did to these groups of people and exploiting those actions for an anti-Bush political agenda. This should be unacceptable to all people.

the fact is, Bush jr. hasn't killed anywhere near the amount of people Hitler did (both in conecntration camps and through his warmongering, and in both i'm referring to hitler)
it may have been a joke, at least to begin with, but comparing Bush to Hitler is, well stupid. Such people are also forgetting that Hitler did actually manage to whip up the majority of his country in support of his actions, to begin with anyway. Bush jr. has had many, and pretty loud too, critics from day one. Hitler also had in part been turned into the monster he was by what he saw as the great injustice done to germany at the end of the First World War, where much of the land they'd conquered was given up. Not to mention that Germany was in a bad state of poverty thanks to the reparations they had to pay.
There are a few similarities, but to be hoenst if you look real hard you can find similarities between all humans.
I don't like him being president, but comparing him to Hitler won't help persuade anyone who supports him, or is on middle ground, that they shouldn't support him (in fact as we can see right here in this discussion, it only gives his supporters ammunition to show up the namecallers)
I long for the day where namecalling no longer happens in politics...

Jade, you are a true idealist.

Only Hitler was Hitler. Even the other bloodiest swine of the 20th century don't compare.

and Jade is right: if you don't like Bush, you should cringe when dipsticks bust out the insane hyperbole because your side loses more every time it happens.

Hitler was a hell of a lot smarter than Bush.

Don't get snippy with me because you approve of hipocrisy. That's just how I read your reply

relax man...no snippy here. just ask barger. i think the word he uses is 'pissy'...but i wasn't pissy either.

and no, i don't approve of the hypocrisy...then or now.

Yeah, I was just jerkin' your chain a little. But the point was that neither side is free from hipocrisy. In fact, in my opinion, Moveon.org is really just getting a taste of their own medicine.

Speaking of hypocrites ... wasn't the Left nodding in agreement, not that long ago, with Anil Dash's assertion that Little Green Footballs was accountable for the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab vitriol in their own comments section?

Geez, the blogosphere is so new*, and already people have short memories.

Thank you for posting this. It gave me fuel in helping to educate a few people who were snowed in by misinformation.

These ads are shocking. I would never vote for Hitler.

I'm a little confused here... What's the basis of this little tiff?

Didn't George Bush compare Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler, just before ordering the spontaneous invasion of Iraq? I seem to recall that Donald Rumsfeld drew a parallel between Bush and Winston Churchill in the leadup to the attack.

So what's the standard here? Is it Hitler or Bush who is beyond the reach of history?

Or maybe the problem is that MoveOn posted video instead of print. Here's an article comparing Bush to Hitler that the Republican National Committee didn't seem to have a problem with:

When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History, by Thom Hartmann, March 16, 2003. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

If someone posted a comment that outrageous on my blog and ended it with a statement that it was "Sponsored by Xrlq," I'd probably ban him from the site. I certainly wouldn't leave the comment intact, without adding an editorial comment to the effect that it wasn't sponsored by me after all.

MoveOn has made its bed.

If Moveon.org wants to play in politics, it should be to no ones suprise, that others will want to play with them. They put something out, whether it was on purpose or incompetence, and got a responce from the opposing side. They get their feelings hurt and back off, run and hide or just blame someone else. In the grand sceme of things its all a side show. Its very entertaining watching both side display their rightous indigantion at each others propaganda. You people on each extreme of the political spectrum who pull your hair, beat your chest and nash your teeth at the political moves oof each other are, as the bard once said, "all sound and fury signifying nothing."

JD,

The Republican National Committee thanks you for reaching this conclusion.

Given the very serious and legitimate criticism of President Bush that can be made -- and which MoveOn is making very well with their actual positions on the issues -- it is important to the RNC that people come under the impression that "Bush is Hitler" is the only thing MoveOn has to say.

It is people like you, dutifully shaking their heads and saying, 'Both sides are extremists,' that let the RNC direct attention from the legitimate criticism it can't handle.

Without predictable folks like you, and the compliant media that panders to you, the Republican National Committee would be nothing. The RNC sincerely thanks you for playing your role so well.