Peter King Compares Rand Paul To Hitler Appeasers, Brilliantly Avoids Godwin's Law

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) managed to invoke Hitler yesterday in a historical context that did not involve insane hyperbole, but instead reflected an actual comparison between isolationist Republicans of the 1930s and today. Referring on CNN to Sen. Rand Paul's contention that the "tax and spend wing" of the Republican party is too fond of foreign wars, King replied 

“What this reminds me of, someone like Senator Paul and others in that isolationist wing,” King continued, “you know the Republicans had this debate back in the 1930s when you had the isolationists and the Charles Lindberghs saying we should appease Hitler, then the Democrats had it in the 1960s when the anti-war movement blamed America first and in both cases it hurt the party for years, each party was hurt for years.”

“I’m afraid that is what Senator Paul is going to do with us. He wants to retreat from the world. He wants to isolate ourselves, go back to ‘Fortress America.’”

Ever happy to nitpick, Yr Wonkette will now delightedly nerdsplain why King has not run afoul of Godwin's Law, even if his analogy is still pretty much crap.

Yes, we will confess, when we first saw this story, our first thought was "Oh boy, Godwin Of The Day." But it isn't, for a change, because unlike all the GOP geniuses who have declared insurance or gun control or traffic stops to be just like Hitler, Peter King is at least comparing apples and apples: when he gets on his "America, I got mine, so fuck you, rest of the world" schtick, Rand Paul really does sound like Charles Lindbergh, only minus the cool flying solo across the Atlantic stuff. Also, bonus points for mentioning Lindbergh as an isolationist, rather than the go-to appeasement figure, British Prime Minister Neville Longbottom.

Then again, King also assumes that Paul has any kind of consistency on this, which seems dubious; sometimes he sounds like a damn hippie, too. He's worried about aerial death robots, except on those days when he'd like to see them used against bank robbers. And of course, the biggest problem with King's not-Godwin analogy is that for all the accuracy of his comparison of Paul to the America Firsters , the national security situation in 2013 is definitely missing another element: whoever it is America dislikes and wants to rain death upon, the dangerous world out there is nevertheless one full Hitler short of making this a valid comparison, so while King gets some points for showing his work, he still pretty much fails the exam.

[ CNN on YouTube via RawStory ]