Iowa Billboard Linking Obama to Hitler Draws Complaints

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obama-hitler-smallA billboard created by an Iowa Tea Party group that compares President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin is drawing sharp criticism – even from fellow Tea Party activists who have condemned it as offensive and a waste of money.The North Iowa Tea Party began displaying the billboard in downtown Mason City last week. The sign shows large photographs of Obama, Nazi leader Hitler and communist leader Lenin beneath the labels “Democrat Socialism,” “National Socialism,” and “Marxist Socialism.”

A billboard ordered and paid for by the North Iowa Tea Party shows President Barack Obama, Adolph Hitler, left and Vladimir Lenin, on South Federal Avenue in Mason City, Iowa, July 12, 2010.

The co-founder of the roughly 200-person group said the billboard was intended to send an anti-socialist message. But Bob Johnson admitted Tuesday that the message may have gotten lost amid the images of fascist and communist leaders.

obama-hitler“The purpose of the billboard was to draw attention to the socialism. It seems to have been lost in the visuals,” Johnson said. “The pictures overwhelmed the message. The message is socialism.” He said he didn’t know of any plans to remove the sign.

But others in the Tea Party movement criticized the sign.

“That’s just a waste of money, time, resources and it’s not going to further our cause,” said Shelby Blakely, a leaders of the Tea Party Patriots, a national group. “It’s not going to help our cause. It’s going to make people think that the Tea Party is full of a bunch of right-wing fringe people, and that’s not true.”

Blakely also expressed outrage at linking Obama to Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany who oversaw the killing of 6 million Jews and whose invasions of neighboring countries led to World War II.

“When you compare Obama to Hitler, that to me does a disservice to the Jews who both survived and died in the Holocaust and to the Germans who lived under Nazi regime rule,” Blakely said.

John White, an Iowa coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, said that he can understand the North Iowa group’s perception that Obama is “Hitler-esque,” but he thinks the billboard is offensive and unproductive. White said that he planned to discuss the matter with national Tea Party officials.

“I fear they may end up in some kind of trouble over it, because it’s basically slanderous,” White said. “I don’t know that it’s the message we want to send. I’d much rather see billboards that say ‘Remember in November. Get Out and Vote.'”

The billboard is owned by Waitt Outdoor of Omaha, Neb. Waitt general manager, Kent Beatty, said the company didn’t have a problem with the message.

“We believe in freedom of speech,” Beatty said. “It doesn’t reflect our views, necessarily.”

The White House declined to comment on the sign.

One person who welcomed the billboard was Dean Genth, a Democratic activist from Mason City, a city of 30,000 people just south of the Minnesota border, who said he thinks the sign lays bare the views of Tea Party supporters.

“I welcome them to continue to spew that kind of stuff because I think it’s going to do a lot of good for the good Democrats around the state,” Genth said.

{AP/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}


15 COMMENTS

  1. The irony is that the “tea-Party” has outlined exactly how they themselves are acting

    “RADICAL LEADERS PREY ON THE FEARFUL AND NAIVE”.

    By linking Obama and his policies they hate, to Hitler, shows just how radical they themselves are….

  2. These tea party activists are doing a major diservice to their own cause, when people see an underdog in politics they tend to eventualy come around and support the victim.
    So if the Republicans carry on with this negative advertising comparing Obama to these massive murderous monsters, they will eventualy be proven to have given Obama a free campaign.

  3. Anyone who can compare Obama to Hitler clearly has absolutly no understanding of what Hitler yemach shemo and the the Natzi party was all about.

  4. at least some in the tea party have the seichel & decency to decry this.
    don’t think that all tea partiers are friends of ours, a sign at one rally read: “Obama takes his marching orders from the Rothschilds”
    to whom do you think they’re referring? the baptists?

  5. Fact is that Obama is trying to get the country upset enough so there are violent demonstrations . He will then impose martial law and really take full control . Think it can’t happen ?

  6. Its a true billboard,and lets rember that a librel will always be a librel what can you do. but in November go out and vote aginst all these shmutzy democrats.
    And rember what the gedolim say, that its assur to vote for a librel.

  7. I guess #4 doesn’t know what obama is all about. This man wants to (and is) breaking down all values that remain. He is a emes’h behaima and won’t be far from hitler in gehinom. hitler didn’t want to distroy our neshomas just our guf, obama wants to distroy our neshomas and all of the yiddin in Eretz Yisroel. He is a true diplomatic anti-semaite, nothing less

  8. The problem with linking Obama to Hitler is, that then people don’t have the right look of understanding against Hitler who killed am yisroel, so Hitler or Nazi should not be used often, since it maked kalleeeh the meaning of Hiler and a Nazi ym”s

  9. 11. If you know anything about Hitler, YMS and how he came to power, then you will understand that Obama is going right along that same road.

  10. #9#11 Obama is an extreme liberal, but don’t lose site of what Hitler really was despite what you hear from all the conservitive talk show hosts.(which I agree are APPARANTLY more aligned with our Torah values)

  11. reply to Dov (#6) no, I don’t think that can happen. btw, George Wallace said the same exact thing 50 years ago regarding integration of schools–he was wrong then, you’re wrong now; it’s sad to see people with such a shallow regard for this great country

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