National Review writer compares Obama to Hitler

Lisa Schiffren sees dark clouds over Barack Obama's plans for his speech at the Democratic convention.

Published July 22, 2008 7:29PM (EDT)

Sometimes, I hate July. Like when the news doldrums we typically find ourselves in around now means we're treated to truly vapid, even stupid stories from the press at large, and when commentators get really desperate to just say something, anything. After reading two particularly silly blog posts just now, I'm having one of my July-hating days.

First up, Lisa Schiffren, writing at the Corner, one of the National Review's blogs. While complaining about the alleged media bias in favor of Barack Obama, she mentioned Obama's plan to accept the Democratic presidential nomination in a stadium that seats 75,000, then wrote, "To me, this is evocative of something Leni Riefenstahl might have documented." Leni Riefenstahl, of course, directed "Triumph of the Will," the Nazi propaganda film that documented a party rally at which Adolf Hitler spoke.

Schiffren, a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle (she wrote the speech in which he attacked "Murphy Brown"), has made similar comments before. In a February post, she suggested that Obama's parents may have been communists, given their biracial union.

Then there's the Weekly Standard's Jaime Sneider, who has a long post about "coffee [as] a heuristic for the presidential election" in which he attempts to show that Obama's campaign is overspending, specifically on liberal, elitist coffee. Sneider writes:

Given all the wasteful spending by the Obama campaign, it is hardly a surprise that its coffee expenditures are, shall we say, lofty. Before its June report was filed, the Obama campaign had spent about $1,800 at Starbucks and $1,400 at Dunkin' Donuts. The McCain campaign, on the other hand, has spent a mere $498 at Starbucks and $970 at Dunkin' Donuts. It is also well known the Straight Talk Express is stocked with Dunkin' Donuts coffee ...

If everything is so bad for Starbucks, how did Obama manage to win the primary? Well, fortunately liberal elitists who have money to burn compose a smaller percentage of the overall population than the Democratic Party. Petite vanilla scones are to Obama what the bear claw is to McCain, and Americans are going to choose the latter.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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