I, and our newspaper group, were in the midst of being likened to
Hitler last week for what must have been the official 1 millionth time
when I felt I was finally going to lose it. My first instinct was to
slam my hand down on my desk in a fit of rage but I thought that
wouldn't go to far to distance myself from the former German dictator.
But, I'm tempted, in tune with Sport Illustrated's "This Week's Sign that Apocalypse is Upon Us" to start listing "What we did Hitleresque this week." So what did we do? Nothing actually. No genocide, no invasion of other countries, no actions that would put us on the brink of another World War. We did however take our comments off the Web site ... just like Hitler did, I guess. Why is it every time somebody gets wronged (especially when it comes to having their crazy,vitriolic,racist opinions shared in an anonymous forum, that somebody must be likened to Hitler.
I'm not Hitler, you're not Hitler. And the more we liken every little cotton picking thing we do ("oooh, you pick your nose like Hitler" or "hey, you parallel park like Hitler) the more we minimize the badness of a man who, according to my history books) was pretty bad. Nothing I do or you is going to make us anywhere near Hitler. So keep writing your letters to the editor, we'll keep publishing them if you're not crazy and stop calling me Hitler.
