Rae compares Bush-Harper to Hitler-Chamberlain.

[shoop]

Bob Rae compared the recently signed softwood lumber agreement to the Munich Pact?

So much for the re-birth of the Liberal Party of Canada. Classless, classless, classless.

This is embarrassing. The best confirmation of (and response to) this statement comes from Warren Kinsella's blog.

May 10, 2006 - I now have confirmation from more than a dozen people who were present at the LPC(O) leadership forum in Toronto last Friday: Bob Rae did, in fact, liken the softwood lumber agreement to the Hitler-Chamberlain Munich Pact. Which certainly suggests Rae analogizes Harper and Bush, jointly and severally, to Hitler and Chamberlain.

I'd ask his campaign who Rae regards as Hitler, in that scenario, if they got back to me. Which they did not.

This is so bloody depressing. And it's reason #3,451 why a lot of us aren't so involved with the Liberal Party of Canada anymore.

www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm

[sideshow]

i think rae is as much an error for the liberals as harper is for the conservatives. i dont think either has any credibility.

anyone has to be better for the liberals, and in my opinion, mckay would have been better for the conservatives.

[scribblet]

Bob Rae compared the recently signed softwood lumber agreement to the Munich Pact?

So much for the re-birth of the Liberal Party of Canada. Classless, classless, classless.

This is embarrassing. The best confirmation of (and response to) this statement comes from Warren Kinsella's blog.

May 10, 2006 - I now have confirmation from more than a dozen people who were present at the LPC(O) leadership forum in Toronto last Friday: Bob Rae did, in fact, liken the softwood lumber agreement to the Hitler-Chamberlain Munich Pact. Which certainly suggests Rae analogizes Harper and Bush, jointly and severally, to Hitler and Chamberlain.

I'd ask his campaign who Rae regards as Hitler, in that scenario, if they got back to me. Which they did not.

This is so bloody depressing. And it's reason #3,451 why a lot of us aren't so involved with the Liberal Party of Canada anymore.

www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm

Boy, Bob Rae must be losing it, thats right up there with that stupid military attack ad, not likely to win ole Bobby any friends. He doesn't have many in Ontario anyhoo, can't imagine Ontario backing Rae. As Kinsella says, wonder who he's likening to Hitler. Anyone who starts using that analogy loses all credibility.

[Riverwind]

Bob Rae compared the recently signed softwood lumber agreement to the Munich Pact?

I think we need a law that prohibits politicians of any stripe from making Hilter anologies. The punishment would be a cross country tour of shopping malls where they would have to sit in a booth and have cream pies thrown at them.

[scribblet]

sorry double post

[Canuck E Stan]

Other than Kinsella,have any of the "media" picked up on the story?

[sharkman]

Yep, ole Bob makes everyone in the room feel smarter!

[sharkman]

Oops sorry, double post. Anyone having the problem that when they go to post a comment they get a 'flood control' rejection of their post, and then find out after their comments were posted after all?

[fixer1]

Bob Rae is an idiot and that is being nice. He did show what he was capable of when the NDP won in Ontario, and that fact still haunts most people in Ontario today. His running for the Liberal leadership is in and of its self just another dumb idea showing why we need the word dumber in the english language. If he ever won the leadership then I suppose that Dumbest would then be needed. It is a shame that any news gathering agency would give him the chance to have his speak, but considering that slow news days are now the norm around the federal politics, I can see how it made the papers.

The liberals trying to poach from the NDP is like Isreal looking to Saudi Arabia for their next leader. I wish this leadership race would just be done and over, as it just seems like more and more of a bad joke.

[gc1765]

I'm not a fan of bob rae...but can we at least get an actual quote? How are we supposed to know exactly what he said? Until a credible source can back up the story I'm a little skeptical.

[KrustyKidd]

Bob Rae did, in fact, liken the softwood lumber agreement to the Hitler-Chamberlain Munich Pact. Which certainly suggests Rae analogizes Harper and Bush, jointly and severally, to Hitler and Chamberlain.

Oh, so Harper obviously is Chamberlain as Bush has to be Hitler so what is the problem for Canada? The Left seems to have found an extreme Left leader in our Right Governement. Wake up folks, it's only a politician trying to grandstand and draw attention to something using an extreme example - and a poor one at that.

If he wanted to be dramatic, and slightly more accurate he should have said 'The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact'

[shoop]

Rae is sad, sad, sad for making that comparison.

To answer gc1765, I don't think the session in question was open to the media. Does that make the quote any less offensive?

Oh, so Harper obviously is Chamberlain as Bush has to be Hitler so what is the problem for Canada? The Left seems to have found an extreme Left leader in our Right Governement. Wake up folks, it's only a politician trying to grandstand and draw attention to something using an extreme example - and a poor one at that.

If he wanted to be dramatic, and slightly more accurate he should have said 'The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact'

[Argus]

del

[Argus]

Other than Kinsella,have any of the "media" picked up on the story?

Why would they? If the grandson of a volunteer in the riding of a backbencher from rural Alberta tells an off-colour joke it's the headline mover in all the major papers, but if a prominent Liberal or NDP says something outrageous it's just a big yawn and not worth their time.

[Guest Warwick Green]

Bob Rae and Scott Brison are throwaway candidates. Over and above being turncoats the Libs won't elect either the guy who gave the world Rae Days or the guy who leaks government policy to his buddies on Bay Street. Right now the main man is our friend from Harvard.

[scribblet]

There's an article here by Kinsella in the N.P. kind of appropro for this topic I think.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/ed...a8-8b9e6c1f059a

Turning Hitler into a debating prop

Warren Kinsella, National Post

Published: Thursday, May 11, 2006

NAZI POST. That's what it says. At the end of our street, there is a shiny new National Post vending box. In and around Toronto, there are many such gleaming and golden boxes, these days, because the Post is selling a lot more copies than it used to. Unless you own The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, that's good news.

The bad news, meanwhile, is readily seen by anyone strolling by on sunny Queen Street East. On the front of the Post's vending box at the end of our street, someone has used a thick black marker to neatly deface the newspaper's name. It now reads: NAZI POST.

Language is regularly denuded of meaning, as everyone knows -- by technology, by popular culture and by the pervasive data smog that suffocates all of us every day. It happens. Language changes, like the seasons. What is de rigueur one month is passe in the next.

But when considering Naziism and its murderous symptom, the Holocaust -- an ideology, and an event, which recall evil for which no serviceable explanation has been devised -- is it appropriate to use any of it as a rhetorical club, to advance a wholly unrelated argument? Has language lost so much meaning -- has it become so hollow, so empty -- that it is now, at long last, acceptable to make genocidal analogies to advance to the Debate Club finals?

[fixer1]

Well if Ignatif is the libs hopes for a future in Canada, then I see them sinking even lower in the polls. His main life so far was and is based in the Harvard style of doing things. That style becoming a liberal path is not something I can see happening. But I guess most liberals hope he can be changed to their own way of thinking. Trudeau manged the wild child come home with a passion for Canada, quite well. Ignatif just does not have that auora about him. I see him more as a foreigner come home to show us all the new ways he has learned, and to tell us of the errors of our present ways. He will be a hard sell to most Canadians, not just to me.

[shoop]

Appears that Rae has confirmed part of the story. Here's a quote (yes from Kinsella's blog)...

I have heard from the Bob Rae campaign. Took a while, but I appreciate the call. Thanks.

I am told:

He did, in fact, compare Harper to Chamberlain.

He did, in fact, mention “Munich” but not the word "pact."

Those are what some of us call a distinction without a difference. The meaning of his statement is plain – namely, the deal Harper did with Bush is analogous to the deal Chamberlain did with Hitler.

Do you think that analogy is appropriate? I sure don’t.

Do you think Bob Rae should apologize? I sure do.

Do you think he will? Don’t hold your breath.

[Big Blue Machine]

This is one of the worst comments Rae has ever made. Its up there with calling the provincial Tories in 1982 "racists".

[BHS]

But when considering Naziism and its murderous symptom, the Holocaust -- an ideology, and an event, which recall evil for which no serviceable explanation has been devised -- is it appropriate to use any of it as a rhetorical club, to advance a wholly unrelated argument? Has language lost so much meaning -- has it become so hollow, so empty -- that it is now, at long last, acceptable to make genocidal analogies to advance to the Debate Club finals?

"Hitler" and "Nazi(s)" have come to mean "He or that which is unacceptable to the Left". Which is ironic, in that said lefties have a tendancy of exhibiting more in common in word and deed with the Brownshirts than the targets of their slurs. Think: insistance on adherence to an orthodoxy of thoughts and ideals, street brawling and riots, attacking the police and private property owned by a scapegoated "other", all of which is justified by a perceived sense of possessing an innate moral and intellectual superiority. I'd hate to wander accidentally into a beerhall full of these people.

Al Gore refered to right-wing bloggers as "digital Brownshirts" for pointing out that Dan Rather was using forged documents to slander the President in the immediate runup to an election. Apparently he was too blinded by his own rage and political impotence to notice that the vast majority of genuinely slanderous digital smear campaigns get their starts on websites with names like The Democratic Underground.

[shoop]

It really is quite sad that Rae got a free pass on this one.

Had it been said in a general election it would have killed the Liberals.

Looks like Rae has lost his touch.

Anybody think he'll be around for the final ballot of the leadership convention?

[geoffrey]

Anybody think he'll be around for the final ballot of the leadership convention?

Nope, everyone knows he's too left-wing and little wacko.

Just remember who pays the bills in the Liberal party, it will be a right leaning candidate. Every major CEO in Canada donates the max to the CPC and the Liberals, for a reason. Having Rae in would cost the Liberals alot of very important money right now.

Same with Ignatieff, who the business community frowns upon, same with Dryden who is just a lawyer with an agenda.

None of these people will be realistic candidates... the Liberals know who's the sugar daddy and will have a reaosnable pro-business candidate to fit the bill.

All the 'front-runners' are considerably more left than even Chretien was, and Jean at least had a right-wing man in the Finance chair.

[willy]

Every major CEO in Canada donates the max to the CPC and the Liberals

By the fall that max will be $1000.00. How much swing will they have under the new financing rules of the accountability act.

During the election the Conservatives raised around $8 million. The Liberals only managed $2million.

The average donation to the Conservatives was just over $100.00. The Liberals was in the close to $4000.00.

Your assertion is correct the Liberals have survived on large corporate donations. I.e. $5000.00 a plate dinners at 24 Sussex.

But, the game is changing and the Liberals to survive will have no choice but to discover what grass roots look like.

My numbers are based on memory. Too lazy to go find my sources.

[BubberMiley]

But, the game is changing and the Liberals to survive will have no choice but to discover what grass roots look like.

You mean they'll need to start up some grow-ops to fund the party?

[Hicksey]

Bob Rae is an idiot and that is being nice. He did show what he was capable of when the NDP won in Ontario, and that fact still haunts most people in Ontario today. His running for the Liberal leadership is in and of its self just another dumb idea showing why we need the word dumber in the english language. If he ever won the leadership then I suppose that Dumbest would then be needed. It is a shame that any news gathering agency would give him the chance to have his speak, but considering that slow news days are now the norm around the federal politics, I can see how it made the papers.

The liberals trying to poach from the NDP is like Isreal looking to Saudi Arabia for their next leader. I wish this leadership race would just be done and over, as it just seems like more and more of a bad joke.

Wow, how ever did you read my mind?