In response to Fox News going apeshit over Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) comparing the GOP to Joseph Goebbels and his "Big Lie", Jon Stewart then showed Fox News anchors themselves repeatedly demonizing liberals as Nazis. Stephen Colbert then followed that up showing how the GOP is just dicking us around with their symbolic votes.
Video and transcript below the fold.
Meanwhile, in other basic cable news, this program went in pretty high and hard on Representative Steve Cohen (Democrat-Tennessee), for taking to the House floor to plead for understanding and compassion of political opponents, one week before taking to the House floor to say this about his political opponents.
REP. STEVE COHEN, D-TN (1/18/2011): They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie. Just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually people believe it. ... The Germans said enough about the Jews, and the people believed it, and you had the Holocaust.
And he rolls... Nahtzee!
Wow, he wins the week at the center of a media firestorm! Many people were annoyed, but none more than Fox News.
GRETCHEN CARLSON (1/20/2011): He compared the GOP health law claims to Nazi lies!
BRIAN KILMEADE: I know you're kidding.
GRETCHEN CARLSON: No I'm not!
BILL O'REILLY (1/19/2011): It is accusing the other side of being Nazis, I mean, it's pretty strong. ... The rhetoric is absolutely over the top.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (1/20/2011): The media should be all over Steve Cohen.
SEAN HANNITY (1/20/2011): If Republicans ever made such a comparison, well, you know the mainstream media would be all over it.
KARL ROVE (1/19/2011): Congressman Cohen should be ashamed of himself.
Wow! Wow. If that guy is telling you, you should feel shame, that's like Charlie Sheen showing up at your intervention to tell you to take it down a notch. But of course, you can always count on some Democratic buzzkill to twist things around.
RICHARD SOCARIDES (1/20/2011): If we want to get into who's heating this and who's overheating this, I mean, you know, every night on the very network that we're on right now, the leading commentators on this network use this kind of language. So let's you and I get together right now and say that there...
MEGYN KELLY: It's just not true.
SOCARIDES: ... well, that is true. I mean, listen, you know, people can be the judge of it, you... maybe you and I watch it....
KELLY: They can. I don't know if you sit and watch our programming every night, but I watch it every day, and you're wrong.
(in a hoarse whisper) Megyn... I watch it every day too. Twelve long years. I think he might be right!
BILL O'REILLY (2/28/2008): If you look back at what happened in Germany, you cannot escape the similarities between what Hitler and his cutthroats did back then, and the hate-filled blogs, what they're doing now.
GLENN BECK (3/5/2010): There is an Obama supporter ... he's got this book and this video out that are propaganda pieces, and I'm telling you, they would make Joseph Goebbels proud.
TAMMY BRUCE (9/26/2007): You have a media Gestapo in Media Matters, and then you have a political Gestapo in MoveOn.org.
BILL O'REILLY (12/8/2005): The far left in this country, the zealots, I mean, these are zealots, are Nazis.
GLENN BECK (8/12/2010): America is repeating the mistakes of the Weimar Republic.
2/27/2008:
BILL O'REILLY: I don't see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis.
MARY KATHERINE HAM: I still don't think she's a Nazi.
O'REILLY: I didn't say she was a Nazi, all right?
HAM: All right.
O'REILLY: I said there's no difference between what the two do.
No difference?!? C'mon, no difference between Huffington and the Nazis? Well... funny accents, ardent followers, some misleading banners, and they did both figure out ingenious ways to get people to work for free.
You know what, finding people on Fox News making Nazi comparisons, it's too easy! I issue a challenge here, live, on this program to my staff. Find someone on Fox News alluding to their political opponents as using Nazi techniques within 24 hours of Megyn Kelly saying it doesn't happen on that network. As I imagine this will be difficult, I'll give my staff the amount of time it takes me to make a delicious Linzer torte. I'll make it, it's one of my famed... I'm sorry... (listens to earpiece) you already found it?
GLENN BECK (3 1/2 HOURS AFTER MEGYN KELLY'S COMMENT): I know the progressives are using progressive tactics. They're not using Nazi tactics. The... the... the... real answer is the Nazis were using early American progressive tactics. And that's not my opinion, that's historic fact.
(in serious Glenn Beck voice) And you know? I should know, I've been drawing the wrong conclusions from historic facts for years.
All right, staff, you wanna dance? You think you can find stuff? Let's dance! Find me someone on Fox making almost the exact same Goebbels comparison to their political opponents, ideally someone we've already seen earlier condemning it. This is a tough one! I will give you until I finish an origami swan. You... oh you... you already got it?
BILL O'REILLY (3/12/2007): The Soros-Lewis mob despises Fox News because we have their number, and report on them accurately. They use the MoveOn website to smear this network and others with whom they disagree. These people use propaganda techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information. They lie, distort, defame all the time.
OK, staff, you win that round! Find me their boss! Find me Roger Ailes, the heart and soul of... (corrects himself) the brains, the boss of the whole entire operation! Find him! Find him explicitly calling people who aren't Nazis, Nazis! Yeah! Do that, staff of mine! Oh, where is it? I guess you don't have the videotape, do you? Huh! Oh, I don't hear anything in my ear! Looks like my staff is doing laps again after the show! (sound of bird screeching)
Oh my God, it's Gunther, the news pigeon! Oh, Roger Ailes did it in a print interview, saying of the NPR executives who fired Juan Williams:
"They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism."
Well, OK, that's close. Now fly, Gunther, be free!
All right, this is it! My ultimate challenge! Megyn Kelly watches Fox News all the time, and yet has not seen anyone equating political opponents to Nazis or Nazi behavior. Find me, oh staff of mine, someone doing it actually on Ms. Kelly's show, with her present! I give you until I finish this home perm kit to find.... (listens to earpiece) Roll tape.
3/31/2010:
MEGYN KELLY: Bernie, did you watch it? What'd you think?
BERNIE GOLDBERG: Well, true believers always make me a little nervous. ... I am not calling these people Nazis, I want to make that clear. But they are not behaving like liberals. They are behaving like brown-shirted thugs.
Ha ha! I'm not saying they're Nazis, I'm saying they are behaving like the soldiers Hitler used! Ha ha! Well, Ms. Kelly, don't you look ridiculous now?
Folks, you can feel it. Change is in the air, where I assume change is freezing its ass off. You see, the Republicans ran on a platform of repealing and replacing Obamacare, all for one reason.
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (1/7/2011): Obamacare is the biggest job killer we have in America today.
REP. BEN QUAYLE, R-AZ (1/5/2011): This health care bill is going to be a job killer.
SEN. ROB PORTMAN, R-OH (1/13/2011): It is a job killer.
REP. VERN BUCHANAN, R-FL (1/19/2011): It's a job killer.
It is a job killer! All those healthy people are going to put grave robbers out of business! Well, last week, the Republicans made jobs their number one priority.
CHRIS WALLACE (1/19/2011): This is a Fox News alert. The House has just voted 245-189 to repeal President Obama's health care reform law.
Whooo!!! They did it! They repealed Obamacare!
Mmm... that is so dry, tickles my nose. Now some of you are saying, Stephen, that champagne bottle is empty. Maybe, but I opened it. And if I'm not drunk right now, why am I such a terrible driver?
The point is, there are two sides to every story. And with this health care repeal, surprise, surprise, the media chose to focus only on the side that was based in reality.
BILL HEMMER (1/18/2011): If the Senate will not pass a repeal bill, and the President would veto that anyway, why put in the effort?
NEIL CAVUTO (1/6/2011): I guess this repeal effort was considered more symbolic than anything else.
DANA BASH (1/7/2011): It's not likely to go very far, this is largely symbolic.
CHRIS MATTHEWS (1/20/2011): A purely political stunt, a symbolic vote to repeal health care reform. In other words, a game.
Yes, a game. Specifically, Operation.
Which, coincidentally, may soon be your health care plan. Because this is a game the Republicans know how to play. And it brings us to tonight's Wørd: Coverage of Denial.
Ask yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, if this repeal was only a symbolic gesture that didn't really change anything, then why would the Republicans do this?
NEWSCASTER (1/20/2011): After voting to repeal the health care law last night, House Republicans passed legislation today to begin replacing it.
If they are replacing Obamacare, then logically, they must have repealed it. (And President McCain Signed It) And folks, this is a return to the Republican values that I love. They don't let reality push them around. They just pretend the world is what they say it is. (No Matter What The Birth Certificate Says) And folks, let's remember, they're only pretending they've repealed it, because that's what they're pretending the American people want.
REP. CONNIE MACK, R-FL (1/23/2011): The American people are demanding that Obamacare be repealed.
REP. JAMES LANKFORD, R-OK (1/20/2011): We hear the American people loud and clear. They don't like Obamacare.
UNIDENTIFIED REP. (1/19/2011): The American people have spoken.
REP. STEVE KING, R-IA (1/19/2011): The American people have spoken resoundingly.
Yes, a resounding 40% of the country want it repealed! And I believe 40% is a majority! (Stephen Got "Majority" On Math Exam) But folks, these guys in Congress can't pretend to repeal the job-killing health care bill all alone. They need your help. You can do your part out there by pretending this Congressional play-acting has helped get you a job. And since it's pretend, you can get any job you want! Fireman, or cowboy, or wizard. (Harry Potter And The Soup Kitchen Of Azkaban) And, ladies and gentlemen, if you're really good at pretending, maybe you can get a job as a Republican member of Congress, because pretending to help you is apparently a big part of what they do. And that's the Wørd.
