Rep. Keith Ellison has gone and compared President Bush to Adolph Hilter. So, what does the Minnesota Star Tribune have to say about the comment? They defend it, of course:
But the point Ellison was trying to make deserves a hearing: The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, were “almost like the Reichstag fire … it put the leader of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.”
Forget about Hitler for a moment. The terror attacks of 9/11 were indeed a starting gun that kicked off a rush to expand government power. Could the Patriot Act have passed without 9/11? Would Congress have authorized a war in Iraq? No credible observer believes that the attacks were some kind of inside job (though an alarming number of people in Muslim countries are happy to think so). But neither is it credible to suppose that the Bush administration has failed to take advantage of the popular support presidents enjoy in times of crisis. Any president would do so.
What’s more interesting is that Rep. Ellison made these statements last week and they’re only now coming to the attention of the MSM.
As for “no credible observer” believing that 9/11 was an inside job, that statement unwittingly puts a large slug of the Democratic party into the not credible category:
Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.
Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.