Rep. Steve Cohen Defends His Nazi Comments

Posted by | January 20, 2011 13:19 | Filed under: Top Stories


Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen issued a statement defending his claim that Republicans use Nazi tactics.

Taken out of con­text, I can under­stand the con­fu­sion and con­cern. In speak­ing about the Repub­li­can mes­sage of “gov­ern­ment takeover of health care” that has been drummed into the heads of Amer­i­cans and the media for more than a year, I ref­er­enced the non-partisan, Pulitzer prize-winning Politfact.com judg­ment that named the Repub­li­can mes­sage as the “2010 Lie of the Year.”

While I regret that any­thing I said has cre­ated an oppor­tu­nity to dis­tract from the debate about health care for 32 mil­lion Amer­i­cans, I want to be clear that I never called Repub­li­cans Nazis. Instead, the ref­er­ence I made was to the great­est pro­pa­ganda mas­ter of all time. Pro­pa­ganda, which is called “mes­sag­ing” today, can be true or false. In this case, the mes­sage is false.

I would cer­tainly never do any­thing to dimin­ish the hor­ror of the Nazi Holo­caust as I revere and respect the his­tory of my peo­ple. I spon­sored leg­is­la­tion which cre­ated one of the first state Holo­caust Com­mis­sions in Amer­ica and actively served as a Com­mis­sion mem­ber for over 20 years. I regret that any­one in the Jew­ish Com­mu­nity, my Repub­li­can col­leagues or any­one else was offended by the por­trayal of my com­ments. My com­ments were not directed toward any group or peo­ple but at the false mes­sage and, specif­i­cally, the method by which is has been delivered.

It is dis­ap­point­ing that my com­ments have been used to dis­tract from the health care reform debate. It is my hope that we can return our focus to the mat­ter at hand—health care for 32 mil­lion Americans.”

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Copyright 2011 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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