Springtime For Charlie Rangel

Who says that Democrats aren't the party of compassion and tolerance?  Just read this story excerpt from NewsMax.com:

Top House Democrat Charles Rangel complained on Monday that the Bush administration's decision to concoct a "fraudulent" war in Iraq was as bad as "the Holocaust."

"It's the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country," Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter. "This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn't their ox that was being gored."

The Harlem Democrat charged that top Bush officials "made up [their] mind to go into Iraq long before 9/11. And every one of the players who made this decision - they were part of this plan to do it. From Rumsfeld to Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bolton, every one of them - Perle - [they were part of the] plan to put our kids in harm's way long before 9/11."

Rangel insisted that American blacks and poor whites are dying in Iraq, while those who supported the war aren't paying any price.

Okaaaaaayyy...where do I even start with this one?

Would Rangel have casually tossed John Bolton's name out a year ago, when no one knew who he was?  Probably not.  Just a pathetic cheap shot at Bolton by trying to link his name to the evil Chimpy McBushHitlerBurton neocon conspiracy.

The whole world knew about Hitler's Final Solution?  Read your history books, Charlie.  America and England wanted nothing to do with German Jews seeking asylum before the war mostly because the liberal anti-war movements in both countries wanted to avoid anything that would generate animosity between Germany and either the US or Britain.  This was Europe's problem, not ours, remember?  In any event, no one really understood what Hitler was doing until late in the war.  The stories that the Allies were hearing from inside Europe were so horrifying that they defied belief until the proof was incontrovertible.  Even then, the Allies had no troops in continental Europe (save for the Italian peninsula) before June 1944.  They could not have done anything to stop Hitler's extermination programs.

The Pentagon had war plans for another Iraqi conflict at least as far back as Desert Storm (1991).  The Clinton Administration reviewed plans for an Iraqi invasion several times during its tenure.  Bill Clinton threatened Saddam with invasion in 1998 and launched a barrage of Cruise Missiles into Iraq in December of that year.  Everyone knows this stuff.  Your assertion that Bush stormed into the White House in January 2001 and immediately ordered an Iraqi attack plan from scratch - where no such plan had ever existed before in the history of the United States - and then somehow caused 9/11 to happen as a ruse to cover his pre-conceived attack plan, is utter garbage.

And then we get to the racial stereotyping.  Poor and minorities hardest hit.  Supporters not making any sacrifices.  Please, spare me.

Finally the absurd Holocaust comparison.  Liberating a nation from a genocidal dictator is equivalent to another genocidal dictator murdering 6 million civilians?  People actually voted for this guy? When will there be a Godwin's Law for politics?

We're waiting for an apology any time, Charlie.  You know, like Rick Santorum was forced to make.

Laurie Byrd at PoliPundit wonders if Democrats knew about Saddam's genocide and Oil-For-Food embezzlements and then kept silent about them.  (And of course we had no way to stop Saddam until we had troops on his soil.)

Jeff Harrell at Shape of Days has another good response.  Michelle Malkin has a blog roundup, including obligatory comments from the Anti-Defamation League.