Doonesbury website poll: 'Is Obama a Nazi?'

It is some measure of the utter incoherence of current public invective that the president of the United States is now routinely denounced as both a "socialist" and a "Nazi", often by the same critics. As memories of real totalitarian atrocities fade, such descriptors are now used to characterize the most trivial triumphs of will (see "Soup Nazi"). A little parsing seems in order.

What is Obama, really?

-Obama is a Nazi. Totalitarian and anti-parliamentarian, he opposes economic and political liberalism. He also believes in a racially and ethnically pure state -- and mass murder to achieve that end.


-Obama is a Socialist. Deeply opposed to capitalism, he believes in class struggle, the redistribution of wealth, and in state ownership and management of the production of goods.


-Obama is a moderate Democrat. He believes in compromise, civil discourse, and modest, incremental policy reform, disappointing everyone but the centrist voters who made his presidency possible.