Tea Party Billboard Linking Obama to Hitler, Lenin Turns Off Some Conservatives
Tom Diemer
Correspondent
Posted:
07/14/10
A Tea Party-sponsored billboard in Iowa that ties President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin -- complete with large photos of the three -- got plenty of attention, but not necessarily the kind that the group wanted.
The outdoor ad in Mason City, put up about a week ago by the North Iowa Tea Party, was removed Wednesday and replaced with a public service announcement, the company that owns the billboard said. The original sign included the labels Democrat Socialism, National Socialism and Marxist Socialism above the enlarged photographs, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive," the text below proclaimed.
But Sharon Blakely, a leader of the national Tea Party Patriots, a grassroots conservative group, said the billboard was a waste of time and money. "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," she told the AP. "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 German who lived under the Nazi regime."
She could have added that Nazism, or fascism, is the polar opposite of the Soviet leader Lenin's creed, communism. In fact, after a brief alliance, the Nazis and the Red Army of the Soviet Union fought each other in many bloody battles during World War II.
Many Tea Party members argue that Obama's liberal policies are socialistic. Bob Johnson, co-founder of the Northern Iowa group behind the billboard, conceded that the purpose of the ad -- alerting the public to the peril of socialism -- may have been "overwhelmed" by the visuals. But John White, an Iowa coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said it was worse than that. "I fear they may end up in some kind of trouble over it," he said, "because it's basically slanderous. 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.' "
"At our last rally we saw some people with those kinds of signs and asked people to put them down," White told the Mason City Globe Gazette. "It's borderline hate crime."
Kent Beatty, general manager of the Nebraska company that owns the billboard, said a North Iowa Tea Party representative called him Tuesday night and asked that the ad be removed. According to the New York Times, it was near an area in the center city called "Music Man Square," honoring Meredith Wilson, a native of Mason City who wrote the music and lyrics for the famed musical.
The outdoor ad in Mason City, put up about a week ago by the North Iowa Tea Party, was removed Wednesday and replaced with a public service announcement, the company that owns the billboard said. The original sign included the labels Democrat Socialism, National Socialism and Marxist Socialism above the enlarged photographs, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive," the text below proclaimed.
But Sharon Blakely, a leader of the national Tea Party Patriots, a grassroots conservative group, said the billboard was a waste of time and money. "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," she told the AP. "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 German who lived under the Nazi regime."
She could have added that Nazism, or fascism, is the polar opposite of the Soviet leader Lenin's creed, communism. In fact, after a brief alliance, the Nazis and the Red Army of the Soviet Union fought each other in many bloody battles during World War II.
Many Tea Party members argue that Obama's liberal policies are socialistic. Bob Johnson, co-founder of the Northern Iowa group behind the billboard, conceded that the purpose of the ad -- alerting the public to the peril of socialism -- may have been "overwhelmed" by the visuals. But John White, an Iowa coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said it was worse than that. "I fear they may end up in some kind of trouble over it," he said, "because it's basically slanderous. 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.' "
"At our last rally we saw some people with those kinds of signs and asked people to put them down," White told the Mason City Globe Gazette. "It's borderline hate crime."
Kent Beatty, general manager of the Nebraska company that owns the billboard, said a North Iowa Tea Party representative called him Tuesday night and asked that the ad be removed. According to the New York Times, it was near an area in the center city called "Music Man Square," honoring Meredith Wilson, a native of Mason City who wrote the music and lyrics for the famed musical.