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Jerry Brown’s Nazi problem

June 19, 2010

The election race for California governor has barely begun, but already Democrat Jerry Brown is in the awkward position of defending himself following comments he made comparing opponent Meg Whitman’s campaign to a famous Nazi. [LA Times]

Doug Sovern, a Bay Area radio reporter who first made a story of the candidate’s remark, said that he was out riding his bike when he encountered Brown jogging through Oakland. They paused to chat, and Brown criticized the volume and tone of the political ads with which Whitman papered the airwaves. “By the time she’s done with me,” Brown said, “I’ll be a child molester. She’ll have people believing whatever she wants about me. It’s like Goebbels. Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda.”

The comment refers to Joseph Goebbels, the creator of the infamous Nazi propaganda machine under Hitler.

After taking some initial criticism for the comparison, Brown attempted to defend himself on a KGO radio interview in San Francisco last week.

Brown hasn’t denied making the comment, but that it was offered in “a private conversation…. Nobody had a pencil.” He said, “Nobody said, ‘By the way, is this a statement that you’re making to the public.'”

Writing in the Times, analyst Tim Rutten reacted: “Jerry Brown is experienced enough and smart enough to know better. Saying what he did in any context simply reinforces suspicions that, at 72, he’s cranky, a touch old and slightly out of touch.”


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Moved to So-Cal in 1972, Brown was Governor. The state didn’t have any of it’s current problems, I remember thinking Jerry Brown always made sense when he talked and with the actions he took. I’ve been a registered Republican for 30 years But have grown weary from all the bull, and more and more feel like little more than a pawn, for those who the tax breaks really benefit ( corp top brass) And I don’t see it trickling down. In the past I would have went for a candidate with business experience or as we say ” someone who has made out a paycheck. ” Not this time the negative ads ran by both Republican candidates were classless and ridiculous. If you want to listen to a true hate monger Nazi tune into Rush, he represents the worst my party has to offer, and the the party distances itself from him I may come back.


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So what?

“She’ll have people believing whatever she wants about me. It’s like Goebbels.” Seems to me that Goebbels did exactly that, he made people believe what ever he wanted them to believe about people. Next time, say it’s just like Carl Rove, they won’t like that either but what will they be able say?


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My father is Brown’s age and has similar verbal misfires. Sometimes what he says isn’t exactly wrong, just inappropriate or poorly stated. Getting old aint for sissies, guys.


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My father, however, isn’t the chief executive of a 33 million person operation, and doesn’t have people hanging on his every word.


Do we really want a governor who doesn’t think before he speaks? Doesn’t matter whether the prob is due to age or to simple cantankerous, if he can’t mind his tongue while in a public place, talking to the media, he could do a lot of harm. Make great “sound bites” for the media, though.


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You are right, just like Biden ” This is a big f…ing deal” and then Obama repeats the quote last week relating to the BP disaster.


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Why not, we “elected” a “president” whose daily “sound bites” put an end to the 5 O’Clock Funnies. They had to change the name of the 5 O’Clock Funnies to the 5 O’Clock Presidential News Bite. At least he has been interested in politics. And if you look at his record as AG you’ll see he has done more to protect the taxpayer than anyone in office since the last time he was in office.


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Brown’s comments and the comments here for Brown are hilarious. During the recent campaign Poizner’s group was trying to paint Whitman as even more of moderate than Arnold. Sorry folks but before you WHIP yourselfs up into your facist hysteria, look at Meg’s record. I don’t think she is as far to the right as you all are convincing (through your blind ideological views) yourselfs that she is.

She was said in the campaign not to support Arizona’a recent immg. law, which would make her a good Nazi by some wouldn’t it? And there is other’s. Meg is to the right of center but to the extreme of fasist? Comon people get a f*cking grip.


I could sit here too and take the lazy way as some posters do with the name calling of the oposite side but it accomplishes little. Why not get back to some serious debate about ideas, instead of the lazy way of slinging names.


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“Tell the truth and run”, Plato

Jerry told the truth but the public (and now news media) may make a big thing of it. These things are picked and chosen to suit one’s notions. The campaign between slim whitman and stevie was atrocious, each trying to out fascist the other.

Let’s go back 10 years when our modern fascists took power here. Anyone speaking out against the bushies was labeled ‘unpatriotic’- I was astonished the media said little about that. Labeling anyone with that lingo is the first step to the Goebbels touch. Since I can remember of our politics that has been a favorite tactic (of the right) to denigrate those who endeavor to create a better country.

Rutten is out of touch. Brown was right. But I suppose the media, and then the lame public, will make a big deal of it.


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Laughable. I cannot be alone in sensing brown-shirt tactics coming from the right since 11/08, and yet the media smiles and pumps it out. The recent Whitman vs. Poizner rhetoric sunk to ‘uncomfortable’ lows, and again, the media smiled and ignored it. The unfortunate lack of knowledge, and/or memory of, fascism & the rise of little Adolph allows ‘analysts’ and reporters to reinvent history.


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I kind of agree with Brown, for the first time in my life. The volume of the ads and the negative tone was unprofessional. There are much worse Nazi’s to be associated with, that’s for sure.


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California uber alles warning: golden oldie


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——————-“touch old and slightly out of touch.” Maybe, but look out wastful spending.. The VW stops here!


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