The Huffington Post reports that Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun won the endorsement of Cornel West this weekend, while also making controversial remarks likening opponent Rahm Emanuel to Adolf Hitler:
The comments came at an event with Cornel West, the Princeton professor and author of such influential works as Race Matters and The Future of the Race. At the event, West spoke of the prerogatives of the next mayor and had some harsh words for another candidate …
She made a reference to The Producers, the Mel Brooks play-turned-movie satirizing the cult of personality around Adolf Hitler. In it, one of the characters describes Hitler as "kind" and "gentle."
Braun made an analogy to Emanuel, the front-runner in the mayor's race, who is Jewish. The Sun-Times shared her comments about Rahm:
"The joke in it was, he was a kind man, a gentle man," said Braun about comments in Mel Brooks' satirical movie. "We are getting the kind man, the gentle man on television."
Braun has clarified, "I was not comparing him to Adolf Hitler; print that … I was trying to say … the kind, gentle concern for the public that is being portrayed in these ads does not square with the record."
OK, we get it. But here's an idea for everyone in politics: If your likening of someone to Hitler means anything other than that person is actually as terrible as Hitler, find a different way to get the point across.
Read the full story at the Huffington Post.
In other news: Shirley Sherrod to Andrew Breitbart: See You in Court.