OUTRAGEOUS, DISGRACEFUL, REQUIRES AN APOLOGY – AT 8:29 P.M. ET:  As readers know, we follow the sins of the media here, but rarely have I seen a piece of journalism, from a major source, as distorted and irresponsible as this.  It's from The Politico, which usually does much better:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Friday encouraged her supporters to read an article comparing the BP escrow fund to Nazism.

“This is about the rule of law vs. an unconstitutional power grab,” Palin tweeted, urging her followers to “Read Thomas Sowell’s article.”

The article Palin points to was published on Monday and likens President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler, saying the U.S. president is stripping away the freedom of his citizens without mass protest.

That is a complete outrage.  The whole premise of this piece, by Andy Barr, is an outrage.  Thomas Sowell, one of the most careful writers of our time, was merely indicating, from history, how freedom is lost.  He was certainly not comparing Obama to Hitler. 

“When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics,” Sowell wrote.

“In our times, American democracy is being dismantled piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.”

Sowell then wrote that Obama is exceeding his legal authority by creating the $20 billion fund, designed to pay claims for damages resulting from the ongoing oil spill off the Gulf Coast.

“Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere,” the conservative columnist wrote.

“And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Sowell also compares the American public under Obama to the “useful idiots” who followed Lenin's creation of the Soviet Union.

You can read Tom Sowell's excellent piece here.  He also cites Franklin D. Roosevelt as someone who improperly expanded executive power.  So I guess that means Roosevelt and Hitler were the same.

And the "useful idiots" reference?  Here it is, from Sowell:

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

Gee, you have to be informed.  That's really dangerous stuff.  Why that's, that's, that's McCARTHYISM.  Oh my God.

Oh yes, Tom Sowell uses "useful idiots" once more in his piece:

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

COMMENT:  This attempt to accuse Professor Sowell of linking Obama with Hitler and Lenin, and then to accuse Sarah Palin of endorsing such a comparison, is gutter-level journalism.  This should never have gotten by an editor.  Shame.

June 26, 2010