RUSH: These guys have threatened me again. This was last Friday at the White House, Jake Tapper — this the presidential daily brief. Jake Tapper says, ‘Rush Limbaugh went on a very long speech which he compared Democrats to Nazis, the president to Hitler, and I’m wondering if the president’s seen any of this. Obviously, the Nazi imagery has been condemned by Jewish groups, and I’m wondering if he feels anything about the language being used this way.’
GIBBS: Any time you make references to what happened in Germany in the Thirties and Forties, I think you’re talking about an event that has no equivalent. And I think any time anyone ventures to compare anything to that, they’re on thin ice and it’s best not deployed. We can have a discussion in our democracy about where we want to go and why or why not we want to take certain steps. The president strongly believes we can do so without yelling at each other, without pushing each other, without degrading each other and do so in a way, I think, that respects the difference in all of our opinions.
RUSH: Now, you may have realized, folks, if you’re listening the first hour of the program that I was slightly angered when I started. This is exactly why. Nobody was comparing Obama to Hitler. We were comparing Obama’s health care to Germany’s health care in socialized Nazi Germany. But, if I am ‘on thin ice,’ is Nancy Pelosi on thin ice? Nancy Pelosi… Jake Tapper, do you know this yet? Do you know that Nancy Pelosi started this? She called friends of mine — audience members of this show decent Americans protesting the takeover of one-sixth of their economy by the government by a man who has a five-minute career — Nazis. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, said they were running around carrying signs with ‘swahstih-kahhs,’ as she said, on them. So I simply responded in kind. And old Gibbs here wants to say I was comparing the genocidal Hitler to Obama. That’s just typical of this bunch, to take that position on it. I was comparing one socialist to another, pure and simple. But if I’m ‘on thin ice,’ then Nancy Pelosi must be on thin ice as well. I’ll move forward to audio sound bites… Yeah, let’s go to number four and five and six. Yes, because I happened to dominate the Friday night newscasts. Chip Reid, CBS News, says that conservative websites and Rush Limbaugh are whipping activists into a frenzy.
REID: Websites of conservative groups that list Democratic town halls and urge critics to go and be heard! And conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, who, Democrats say, are whipping activists into a frenzy, comparing President Obama’s health care plan to Nazi policies.
RUSH ARCHIVE: … Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate. …
REID: To give an idea of just how nasty this battle over health care reform has become, Capitol Hill Police say they are now investigating a possible death threat by a constituent against a Democratic congressman from North Carolina.
RUSH: Yeah, we heard about this, and this guy. Then after that said there were hundreds of congressman getting death threats. This ‘Adolf Hitler, like Obama, ruled by dictate,’ what would you call all of these czars? What would you call firing the CEO of General Motors? What would you call setting up a ‘pay czar’ and telling the pay czar to determine who can make what?