Conservative media ignore their own long history of invoking Nazis to smear progressives

Conservative media falsely claim Pelosi asserted or suggested that health care reform opponents are "Nazis"

Following Limbaugh's lead, numerous media figures have advanced this false claim. After host Rush Limbaugh said August 6 that Pelosi is "basically saying that we are Nazis. She is saying that the people who oppose this are Nazis, and I'm going to tell you what," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, Fox News' Gregg Jarrett, and The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan and James Taranto falsely claimed or suggested that Pelosi called health reform opponents "Nazis."

In fact, Pelosi said protesters were "carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care." Speaking to reporters, Pelosi was asked if she thought there was "legitimate grassroots opposition" at recent town hall events. She responded: "I think they're astroturf; you be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."

Some in the media also accused Pelosi of lying for saying protesters were "carrying swastikas" -- but they were. Numerous conservative outlets and figures, including The Washington Times, Andrew Breitbart, and The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore asserted or suggested that Pelosi was lying. But swastikas have appeared at town hall meetings. Indeed, as Media Matters for America senior fellow Eric Boehlert and Fox News contributor Alan Colmes have noted, multiple protesters at health care reform protests have held signs featuring swastikas.

Limbaugh has ratcheted up Nazi rhetoric to new levels in recent days

In the past week, Limbaugh has made comparisons of the Obama administration and Democrats to Hitler and the Nazis with alarming frequency. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks responded to one such comparison by stating: "What he's saying is insane."

Here are some recent examples of Limbaugh's obsession with Nazi comparisons:

• August 6: Limbaugh: "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate"

• August 6: Limbaugh: "[T]he Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo"

• August 6: Limbaugh discusses "the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany"

• August 6: Limbaugh claims Obama "sending out his brownshirts"

• August 7: Limbaugh again says Obama health care logo "looks damn like the Nazi logo," lashes out at reporters mentioning comment

• August 7: Limbaugh falsely suggests that Obama believed "eight years ago," the American court system was "Nazi-like"

• August 7: Limbaugh again refers to "similarities" between Dem Party leaders, "Nazi Party of Germany"; adds Pelosi "started it"

• August 10: Limbaugh explaining his Nazi reference: "Socialism is socialism," "Hitler, Lenin, Stalin were all men of the left"

• August 10: Limbaugh: "Let's go back and compare [pay czar] to Nazi Germany"; "Hitler had a labor czar"

• August 10: Limbaugh: Gibbs "wants to say I was comparing the genocidal Hitler to Obama"; "I was comparing" two socialists

• August 10: Limbaugh: Obama's flag@WhiteHouse.gov is like Hitler's "youth movement"

Other conservatives have drawn comparisons between Obama administration, Democrats and Nazis

• February 6: Beck on O'Reilly Factor: "We are really truly stepping beyond socialism and starting to look at fascism"; compares proposals to Nazi Germany

• April 2: Teasing tomorrow's show, Beck airs photos of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, asks, "Is this where we're headed?"

• May 15: On Hannity, Terry revisits comparison between Obama and Nazi leaders

• June 10: Beck says "the Germans" during Hitler's rise "were an awful lot like we are now"

• June 13: Which is it? Separate Wash. Times opeds compare Obama administration to 1930s Germany, 1930s England

• June 19: Coulter discusses "problem with huge bureaucracies" like Nazis, U.S. gov't, adds "I'm not saying this is Nazi Germany"

• July 22: Savage says "Adolf Hitler would be proud" of Schumer for "kill[ing]" concealed weapons amendment

• August 12: Beck: "I'm not comparing" Obama to Hitler, but "please read Mein Kampf" and learn from Germany's mistakes

Conservatives have also used Nazi rhetoric to attack Obama administration policies and proposals, particularly health care reform

• January 27: Numerous media figures equate Pelosi's defense of family planning provision in recovery package to China's "one-child policy," eugenics, Nazism

• January 27: KSFO's Sussman compares Pelosi's contraception comments to Nazism, claims we're on our way to a "one child policy in this country"

• February 11: Wash. Times invokes Nazism, publishes Hitler photo while criticizing health-care provisions in stimulus

• March 27: Bruce claims recovery act "crap sandwich" created a "Nazi, fascist health czar"

• June 1: He's "not calling Barack Obama Hitler," but Goldberg compares GM bankruptcy to creation of Volkswagen under Nazi Germany

• June 10: Beck compares car dealership closures to Nazis; warns "Gang, at some point, they're going to come for you"

• August 4: Liddy reads Buchanan column connecting health care bill provisions to Nazi euthanasia

• August 6: Beck links health care reform to Nazis, suggests reform would kill elderly and newborns

Conservatives have long used Nazi rhetoric to smear progressives

Al Gore

• Beck compares Gore to Joseph Goebbels and drug dealers, says "The government and its friends are indoctrinating our children for the control of their minds"

• Beck compared Gore's global warming "lie[s]" to "Goebbels or Hitler"

• Fox guest likened Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to Nazi propaganda films

• Beck on An Inconvenient Truth: "It's like Hitler"

• Beck likened Gore to Nazi propagandist, let Inhofe distort his climate change testimony

• In preview of special, CNN host allowed Beck to repeat comparison of global warming consensus to Hitler eugenics

Barack Obama

• Cunningham compared Obama to Castro, Mao, and Hitler, declared Obama is "now poised ... to seize power in America"

• In the days before the election, media figures have repeatedly compared Obama to Hitler

• Cunningham alleged that "Obama wants to gas the Jews"

• Sowell compared Obama to Hitler, Mao, other dictators, and Jim Jones

• Stein on Obama's convention speech: "Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done"

• Noonan claimed Obama's DNC speech at Invesco Field "has every possibility of looking like a Nuremberg rally"

• On Hannity & Colmes, Coulter again made Obama-Hitler comparison, said Clinton "would enjoy torturing" detainees

• Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan aired "side-by-side comparison" of speeches by Hitler and Obama

• On CNN Headline News, Goldberg compared Obama, FDR to Hitler

Hillary Clinton

• Beck juxtaposed Hitler's "decree permitting euthanasia" with Clinton's plan for health care

• Savage called Clinton's Rutgers speech "Hitler dialogue," added, "Goebbels would be proud of you"

Current or former Democratic officials

• Savage: "Jimmy Carter is like Hitler"

• Hannity suggested use of Quran in representative's swearing-in same as using "Nazi bible" Mein Kampf

• Savage accused "Nazi" Rep. Hinchey of seeking a "final solution for conservatives on talk radio"

• Medved interspersed clips from Kucinich's DNC speech with clips of Adolf Hitler

• Claiming "I'm not making any comparison here," O'Reilly asserted that like Pelosi, Hitler also "practiced for hours before making a speech"

George Soros

• Coulter: Dems have "a Nazi collaborator, literally -- international financier George Soros -- funding their phony grassroots organizations"

• Coulter still smearing Soros as Nazi collaborator

•  Savage on "Billionaire George Goebbels Soros": "a money changer in the temple of truth"; Savage on MoveOn.org: "rat-bastard Communists"

• Echoing Lyndon LaRouche, Horowitz and Poe smear 14-year-old George Soros as Nazi "collaborator"; new book features doctored quotes, factual errors

• TNR's Peretz cropped transcript to support his smear of Soros as "a young cog in the Hitlerite wheel"

• KSFO hosts repeat, embellish Soros Nazi smear: "[H]e, apparently very cheerfully and willingly, went to work for the Nazis" to "further his own career"

• KSFO program director retracts Soros Nazi smear: "These statements are not accurate, and KSFO regrets that they were broadcast"

 "Left-wing media"

• O'Reilly claims media using Goebbels tactics to push "propaganda," left trying to "knock out Judeo-Christian traditions"

Media Matters for America

• O'Reilly on MMFA's Brock: "That's just Joseph Goebbels Nazi stuff."

• Coulter to O'Reilly on Media Matters: "little Nazi block watcher[]" website that "want[s] to keep me off" of CNN

• Schlussel claimed Media Matters is "Nazi-funded"

• Savage on Media Matters: "They're the brownshirts of our time"

Other progressive organizations, including NCLR, SEIU, ACORN

• Beck on ACORN "brownshirts" and "their henchmen" at SEIU: "[T]hey break kneecaps... Maybe they do, maybe they don't, I don't know"

• WND's Farah calls NCLR "a racist hate group," compares group to KKK and neo-Nazis

• Beck warns that ACORN, unions, AmeriCorps acting as Obama's "civilian force," "brownshirts"

• O'Reilly: "Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin."

• O'Reilly labeled Air America "the Joseph Goebbels network"

• O'Reilly equated giving money to MoveOn.org with donating to Nazi Party

• O'Reilly defends comparison of Daily Kos to Nazis and KKK

• O'Reilly continued to compare Daily Kos to Nazis and KKK

• O'Reilly again asserted that "hate-filled" Daily Kos "rivals the KKK and Nazi websites"

• O'Reilly: No escaping "the similarities between what Hitler ... did back then and the hate-filled blogs, what they're doing"

• O'Reilly again attacked Huffington Post as using "same exact tactics that the Nazis used"

Progressive movement, progressive individuals

• O'Reilly compared Moore, Franken to Goebbels; compared Hollywood celebs to Nazi faithful

• O'Reilly denied comparing Franken to Goebbels -- but he did; CAP urged: E-mail O'Reilly "to correct the record"

• O'Reilly on Michael Moore's "power":"[T]his happened in Nazi Germany"

• UPDATED: Savage on the "progressive movement": "the brownshirts of today ... the same rabble that brought Hitler to power"