Media Matters has one of those “it gets crazier the farther down you scroll” compendiums of right wing punditry, starting with the relatively innocuous claims by Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage that a.) Obama faked his grandmother’s broken hip in order to garner sympathy votes, b.) the grandmother’s injury is real, but was actually caused by Obama, who pushed her down the stairs in her wheelchair while giggling like Tommy Udo, or c.) it’s a cover story concocted by Obama so he could fly to Hawaii and surreptitiously alter his birth certificate, because even though his every move is shadowed by Secret Service agents and recorded by television cameras, making him a seemingly sub-optimum choice for a covert operation, he’s the only one in the campaign who knows how to use Photoshop. And it just gets better from there. In fact, only about halfway down the column, well before we get to the conservative radio hosts who are using the public airwaves and the huge throbbing veins in their foreheads to accuse Obama of being the antichrist, we find Dr. Thomas “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a kidney today” Sowell and Bill “Dewlap of Doom” O’Reilly shattering Godwin’s Law like it was a Hummel figurine, or the Geneva Convention. Something quaint and brittle, anyway.
Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell compared Obama to Hitler, Mao and Jim Jones. What’s the similarity? Well, they all spoke inspiringly of “change.” … Bill O’Reilly recently declared that Nancy Pelosi practices her speeches too much, noting that Hitler also practiced speeches before delivering them (O’Reilly claimed he wasn’t comparing Pelosi to Hitler. Right.)
By this point it’s fairly obvious that when viewed from the right wing, this isn’t an election, it’s the world’s longest Usenet thread.
But that’s no reason not to play. Let’s see… Hitler peed while standing up. Bill O’Reilly pees while standing up. Therefore, Bill O’Reilly is like Hitler, except Bill’s aim isn’t very good, so he’s really more like Himmler, who was nearsighted.
So, how many degrees of separation can you find, kids?