CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The chairman of the California Democratic Party likened Republicans to a Nazi propagandist Monday morning.
“They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie … Joseph Goebbels — it’s the big lie, you keep repeating it,” John Burton told reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle and CBS News before a delegation breakfast.
He said GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan told “a bold-faced lie and he doesn’t care that it was a lie. That was Goebbels, the big lie.”
Goebbels was the Nazis’ minister of propaganda. California Gov. Jerry Brown got in trouble in 2010 for comparing his GOP opponent Meg Whitman to Goebbels.
Mitt Romney’s campaign pounced on Burton’s remark, calling on President Obama, DNC Chairman Antonio Villaraigosa and Brown to repudiate it.
A spokesman for Obama said the statement does not reflect the views of the campaign.
“That doesn’t have any place in the political discourse here in Charlotte,” Ben LaBolt said, when asked about the matter by reporters Monday morning. He didn’t answer when a reporter asked if the Obama campaign would ask Burton to step down.
Burton, the longtime leader of California Democrats, is known for his spontaneous, often profanity-laced pronouncements.
Mitt Romney’s campaign responded with a statement from former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, the National Co-Chairman of the Romney-Jewish coalition.
“President Obama promised to lift up American politics. Unfortunately, some of his supporters, by employing rhetoric that has no place in our political system, are bringing it down to the gutter,” he said. “The comments by California Democratic Chair John Burton likening the Republican Party to Nazis and Joseph Goebbels are just such an instance. All people of good will should repudiate such disgraceful words.”
Matt Connelly, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, also weighed in.
“Chairman Burton’s comments are outrageous and insulting to all Americans. It’s become clear that with no record to run on and no plan for the future, President Obama and his allies will resort to the lowest attacks possible to divert attention away from the fact that Americans are worse off today than they were four years ago,” he said.
Our own Gov. Lepage said the US goverment may start killing people like the Gestapo. I have yet to hear Ryan, Nutting or Webster call Lepage out for his act of high treason.
Burton’s statement was hyperbolic and uncalled for. However, he’s obviously in not-so-good company with LePage.
Except Burton was correct. The Republicans have been using their money to spread the most horrendous lies about our nation. Hardly a day goes by that there isn’t some nasty Republican funded headline about how rotten we Americans are at work or school or some such thing.
He could have said just that (which is correct) and avoided the landmine Goebbels analogy. Put himself in as much hot water as LePage (hardly an admirable comparison).
Except what Lepage said the US goverment is planning to murder it’s own citizens. Lepage commited high treason and should be in prison. The Republican party is continuing to protect the traitor Lepage even as they whine about a completly honest remark that exposed the GOP tactics for what they are . Lies , lies and more lies.
Burton may have gone overboard but he did so stating what has become a political truth that has been accepted as fact. The GOP’s constant ‘tell-the-lie-until-it’s-believed-as-the-truth’ philosophy got called out and now the GOP is crying that it’s racist ? Please, is their constant calling for the removal of Obama on the basis of a defective birth certificate any less racist. And the leading caller for this is non other than the leading GOP Senator, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor right behind him.
Was Burton wrong in what he said ? Time will tell. Was he wrong the way he said it ? Maybe. But what everyone seems to forget is that Burton has the right to make that statement because of The Constitution, the same Constitution that the GOP and TPr’s are so loudly proclaiming they are defending. Funny but isin’t The Constitution supposed to apply to everyone or is it only applicable to those who agree with the ‘right kind’ of people ?
I am sure he didn’t mean what he said. He misspoke….
like all the libbers do. I am sure he just overlooked
all the lies and the fear mongering his party has
engaged in. I am sure he doesn’t believe there has
been any class warfare by his party. I am sure he
believes in a socialist nation where everyone will
and should be happy on food stamps. I am sure he
was not issuing comments that weren’t in lockstep
with the libber movement. Was he being racist? No
way! These poor misunderstood libbers just want to
help all of us. They want to GIVE you everything and
Barack is the man to do it. He has a big stash.