It Isn't Just Dean

As if to remind the nation anew that Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean isn't his party's sole dispenser of political vomit, Harlem Donkressman Charlie Rangel spent the week wallowing in his own steaming pile after going on a New York radio talk show and equating Operation Iraqi Freedom to the Holocaust:

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."

Rangel proceeded to, well, regurgitate the standard left-wing anti-war BS that didn't convince anybody in last year's presidential campaign beyond the fever swamps in which people like him bottom-feed. Hence the shameful upping of the rhetorical ante.

Asked to clarify his Holocaust comparison, Rangel told Malzberg:

"I am saying that people's silence when they know terrible things are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust, where everyone would have me believe that no one knew those Jews were killed over there."

There is a difference, of course: the Holocaust actually happened. And the descendents of its victims are none too happy at Rangel's "ethnically insensitive" trivializations:

The Anti-Defamation League is demanding that House Democrat Charlie Rangel apologize after he compared America's liberation of Iraq to Hitler's Holocaust....

"It is so outrageous that a leader of Congress would compare one thing to the other," complained ADL President Abraham Foxman. "Sometimes we say it's ignorance. Charlie Rangel is not ignorant. Charlie Rangel has been there."

Speaking to the New York Daily News, the Jewish civil rights leader added:

"It is so outrageous that I think he owes an apology not only to the families of the victims of the Shoah, but he also owes an apology to the soldiers who are fighting for freedom."

Mr. Foxman is right, of course. But if he actually expects to receive such penitance, he'll be waiting a loooooong time for it. That sort of thing doesn't fit into the lib-crafted public utterance double-standard, which holds that lefties, who are inherently morally virtuous no matter how despicable they act, have carte blanche immunity to say anything they want free of criticism or dissent, while conservatives, as the pre-emptively designated beknighted, are to be held to strictest account for things they've never said but which they're considered to have blurted anyway because of the aforementioned pre-emptive designation.

Kind of a hybridized distillation of gnosticism and Leninism, as Bob Novak's comment the other day synopsized:

Reacting to the influential Democrat's outburst, political columnist Robert Novak noted "If a Republican had said that, comparing anything like that with the Holocaust, he'd be in huge trouble."

"In huge trouble?" Hell, s/he'd be forced to resign and go into exile. His/her life might even be in danger.

But Rangel?

"I think Charlie's probably sorry he said it," Novak told CNN.

I don't. Unlike Dr. Demented, Rangel doesn't speak for his party, and his seat is a lifetime gig. He said exactly what he meant to say, he's damn proud of it, and I think he truly believes every word of it. And as Democrats go, he is not the exception.

For his sake, I hope Dr. Demented copyrighted that scream.

UPDATE: What Mark Noonan dubs, rather obviously, as the "Dean effect," appears to not be confined to "influential" jackasses:

A day after Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Howard Dean was the "best tool" the GOP had, Jason Willet, the newly elected State Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party - feeling his oats and probably still basking in the glow of Howard Dean's visit to the Natural State in April - compared the state's Republicans in the Northwest corner (chiefly Washington, Crawford, Sebastian and Benton counties) of the state to "Shiite radical Republicans."

All I can say to Mr. Willet is, yes, Howard Dean is indeed a tool, and we "Shiite radical Republicans" will be praying for your sorry excuse for a soul.

UPDATE/BUMP TO 6/13: As usual for cowards of his ilk, Congressman Rangel has eschewed apologizing for his despicable slander of the President and our men and women in unform and opted to hide behind race-baiting instead:

The furor over House Democrat Charlie Rangel's comparison of the Iraq war to the Holocaust continued on Friday, with Rangel firing back at Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman after Foxman demanded he apologize.

"This is not the first time Abe Foxman has attacked me and other people of color," Rangel told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity. "He does more to cause friction between blacks and Jews than anyone I know."

Yeah, how dare he fire back. Foxman and the rest of those "uppity Hebrews" should just keep quiet if they know what's good for 'em, right Charlie?

When asked if he'd speak to the ADL about their complaint, Rangel told Hannity: "I would speak not with Foxman, but with anyone who's offended by it. ... Foxman, no."

The Harlem Democrat contended that Foxman "doesn't speak for the ADL. He certainly doesn't speak for my Jewish friends here and in Israel."

I rather doubt Rangel has any Jewish friends. And if he did, he shouldn't after trivializing the Holocaust and refusing to retract his heinous comment.

Gotta hand it to him for his disdainful ambition, though; it's not even every Donk that tries to hide his cowardice and dishonor behind a race-baiting smear and purport to misdirect public attention from the source of the incident at the same time.

But there's a reason for that.

Sorry, Charlie.