The truth is that there is no comparison to Hitler

Holy Sauerkraut, Batman! Pat Buchanan sounds like a Hitler apologist! Did Hitler want war?

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the rise and fall of both, is a history lesson that will be studied for a long time to come - and it will certainly be used over and over again by political activists of all stripes seeking to persuade discussions to go their way. Basically, the formula is to link your opposition to Hitler in some way or fashion, and the rest, theoretically, takes care of itself.

Much has been made lately of comparing President Obama to Hitler, and there has even been altered pictures circulating that has Obama with Hitler's toothbrush mustache. While left-wingers may cry foul over that, they are far from innocent in using Hitler for political aims. For pretty much all of President Bush's terms of office, left wingers had tried to link Hitler to Bush and the war in Iraq.

The truth is that neither president nowhere near approaches Hitler's lust for power nor his territorial ambitions - and while you may argue over how much loss of human life each has caused, their numbers nowhere nears the staggering loss of life that Hitler brought about. It's just not a valid comparison - and yet that won't stop the comparisons from being made. There is a saying that the definition of insanity is to do the same failed thing every time and expecting a different result each time. Both left and right wingers cling to the Hitler tactic because it is a lazy shorthand way of labeling the opposition instead of actually debating the issues. It's for them that "Godwin's law" was made.

Let me ask this: How many of you had your mind changed after you heard that "X" is just like Hitler? Were any of you a Bush supporter until left-wingers compared him to Hitler, then you switched sides? Did any of you back Obama until you saw those pics of him with a Hitler mustache? The truth is that Hitler and Stalin were monsters the likes of which had never been seen before, and hopefully won't be seen again.

To try to turn the tragic, painful lessons brought about by their murderous actions just to score cheap political points is an insult to all those who suffered and died under their respective regimes. Politics is a dirty, ugly business, and it often is reduced to childish and immature behavior just to gain some edge over their opponent.

Having said all that, this is not to say that there aren't any instances of comparing "Person X" to Hitler, just that the Hitler card has been played so much that whenever it shows up, it's mostly because of that player's intellectual laziness rather than through any valid comparison. The overuse of the Hitler and the Nazi card also has the effect of blurring or diluting the true lessons that can be learned from his actions, and that's something that should NEVER be forgotten.

I'll save that discussion for another time, because I want to be able to deal with this thoroughly.