Yeah, but did Hitler invent the Internet?

CNN "Headline News" host equates Al Gore's efforts to end global warming with Adolf Hitler's efforts to eliminate Jews.

Published May 2, 2007 12:54PM (EDT)

Media Matters tunes in to Glenn Beck's nationally syndicated radio show and finds him plugging his upcoming CNN "Headline News" special on global warming by equating Al Gore's tactics with Adolf Hitler's.

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them," Beck is careful to explain. "It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government ... You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming ... Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, 'That's not right.' And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did."

That sounds a lot like the way in which a certain White House we know handled dissent in the run-up to the Iraq war and has silenced science with which it doesn't agree. But we learned a long time ago that equating people with Hitler isn't the most compelling way to make your case, especially when there are so many other ways to do so. Maybe Beck and his employers will catch on someday, too.

P.S. Yes, we know that Al Gore never said that he invented the Internet. It's a joke about the failings of the mainstream media. Sort of like Glenn Beck himself.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

MORE FROM Tim Grieve


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