Hitler and Jackie...

I have always loved history. Perhaps my fascination in historical research is with the idea that you might uncover something in your travels through the treasure troves of history that no one else has seen for years, decades or centuries. Sometimes those "discoveries" might be enlightening and other times they might end up being nothing more than a question on a Trivial Pursuit card.

One such piece of history relates to recently uncovered documents that highlight the Nazis fascination with a Finnish dog, Jackie (a Dalmation cross), owned by Tor Borg. It would seem that Jackie had an unusual talent of being able to mock the Fuehrer. Whenever Jackie heard the word Hitler his paw would raise in the fashion of a German doing the Heil Hitler salute.

What makes this truly bizarre is that the incident resulted in significant diplomatic traffic between Helsinki and Berlin as to how best to deal with the insult. The plan was to haul Borg in for questioning and destroy his pharmaceutical business. However, as the cables show, Borg denied the accusations, although he did admit that his wife called the dog, Hitler.

Luckily, for Borg, no witnesses could be found that were willing to testify that Borg had trained Jackie to perform the salute. So, the case faltered and never went to trial. Borg continued on his merry way and remained a successful business man with his Tamro Group until his death. Jackie led a full life and died of natural causes.

Apparently, to date, there is nothing in the documents to suggest that Hitler himself was aware of the saluting dog, but considering the documents were passed through his office it is likely that the Fuehrer may have known that he was being mocked by a dog. I would reckon the Nazis would have been besides themselves if the Downfall parody videos had been around during World War Two. To be honest, you would have thought that the Nazis would have had more important things to contemplate than a dog with a penchant for a salute considering they were fighting a war on two fronts.

Mahatir, 9/11, and Jews...

There is one thing you can always count on from the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, controversy. Whether what he says is true or not seems to be irrelevant. But, on some issues the man is downright creative in the manner he constructs his conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, probably more disturbing is the suggestion that the targeting and killing of Jews has failed to solve the "Jewish problem" at least as he sees it. I wonder if I am reading too much into the implied 'if you are going to do it, then do it right' sentiment that he appears to be suggesting.

If the quotes attributed to him are correct then he paints a pretty disturbing picture of what goes on in his head. It would seem that the only difference between him and Ahmadinejad (who is supposedly of Jewish ancestry) is that Mahatir does not deny that a massacre (probably a little less severe than a using the terms genocide or holocaust to describe the 'Final Solution' envisaged by the Nazis) took place during the Second World War.

The conspiracy theory that if the US can put together a film like Avatar, then they are more than capable of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks and blaming them on Muslims as an excuse to wage war on Muslims. The idea that the 9/11 attacks were not all that they seem, and that the US may have been involved in setting up the attacks on themselves is not a new one. Let's face it, even Rosie O'Donnell is on the record saying that the 9/11 attacks were staged and that the World Trade Centers were brought down with strategically placed bombs.

However, it is his comments about Jews that are most disturbing. Mahatir seems to think that the world's problems are caused by Jews and some kind of Jewish lobby. This is not new either as a conspiracy theory. Nevertheless, what is a little disturbing is that he seems to think that confining the Jews to ghettos and then periodically massacring them is not necessarily a bad idea, but rather it has not been done properly as the Jews have always managed to rise up again and thrive once again.

Mahatir is quoted as saying, "even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world."

Then again, one needs to take whatever Mahatir says with a grain of salt, the man is renowned for his anti-US and anti-Semitic stances. I guess he is certainly not putting his name forward as a man of peace and reconciliation.

Glenn Beck -- Losing the Plot?

Glenn Beck since arriving on Fox News Channel (FNC) has really and truly lost the plot it seems. Perhaps he had lost it before and people had not noticed?

The bloke is always worth watching. This is for no other reason than finding yourself throughout his rambles shaking your head and going, "are you kidding me?", "did he just say that?", "are you serious?"

Some of his classics of late have involved calling Obama a racist and comparing Obama's health care plan to Hitler's eugenics in Nazi Germany.

These rants have resulted in advertisers fleeing in droves from his show.

Stephen Colbert, who I find to be a very funny man, had this take on it.

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Rush Limbaugh, Barack Obama, and Adolf Hitler...

I have taught a lot of advocacy classes in my time. One of the things that I teach students in those classes is to be careful using exaggerated analogies. Simply, the exaggeration ends up making the analogy sound hollow and untrue. An exaggerated analogy then serves to do nothing more than detract and undermine what may in fact be a legitimate concern.

One of the examples that I use is: "the conditions of the jail where my client is incarcerated are as bad as Auschwitz!" The reason that this is an exaggerated analogy is abundantly clear to anyone who has read anything about the concentration camps that Nazi Germany used as part of the Final Solution. It is highly unlikely, for example, that a modern day prison in Australia, the US, the UK, or even Abu Ghraib, resemble the abhorrent conditions of Auschwitz.

So, as I was reading about Rush Limbaugh comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Obama's health care policies to the policies of the Third Reich and Nazi Germany, I could not help but think that any real points that Limbaugh may have been making would be lost in the brouhaha that was going to come with the analogy equating Obama to Hitler.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper wrote a short and interesting piece on the injection of Nazi into the debate and the dangers that this poses to American democracy.

For me, the points that Limbaugh is trying to make have been lost. I am sure that there are legitimate arguments to be made for and against the Obama health plan. However, labeling Obama a Nazi and trying to equate the health care symbol as one previously favoured by the Third Reich, the Reichsadler, is absurd.

The whole idea of equating Obama to Hitler and the Obama health policy to a policy of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich reminds me of my favourite Forrest Gump quote, "stupid is as stupid does!"