On today's Meet the Press, Dick Armey attempted to recycle a long-debunked smear of former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. Rachel Maddow called Armey on his falsehood and he squirmed, but the smear ultimately went unrefuted.
I detail and refute the lie below.
The exchange in question begins around 3.50 in the below video. Armey asserts, as truth, a time "When MoveOn.org ran those ads that compared President Bush with Adolph Hitler."
Watch.
Maddow contested and Armey squirmed, but his falsehood ultimately went unrefuted.
And to add insult to injury, Brendan Steinhauser, Director of Campaigns for the Armey-tied FreedomWorks.org, was quick to try to amplify Armey's recycled lie. In a blogpost placed on the FreedomWorks.org front page (large graphic file), Steinhauser posted the supposed MoveOn.org ad and wrote,
This morning on Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow denied that MoveOn.org created an ad comparing president George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. But here is the 2003 video in question, which you can judge for yourself.
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As I said before, this is nothing other than a recycled, already-debunked smear (also see here).
In point of fact, Move On neither created nor distributed any ad that attempted to tie Bush to Hitler. The ad in question was submitted to the MoveOn.org website by a member of the public during a contest. It was promptly removed by MoveOn.org from their website, but not before former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie could get a hold of it and use it to lie to the American people. And now Armey and his FreedomWorks.org are trying to recycle the lie.
Comparisons between Hitler and American leaders or movements of either the Left or Right need to be avoided, except when done with the most scholarly of care.