(MOVEON)US LIBERAL GROUP SORRY FOR HITLER/BUSH COMPARISON!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, often a lightning rod for opposition to the Iraq (news - web sites) war, apologized Monday for posting two political messages on the Internet comparing President Bush (news - web sites) to Hitler.

One ad mixed images of Hitler and Nazi militarism with Bush taking the oath of office and equated German war crimes of 1945 with Bush's foreign policy. The other quoted Hitler and Bush as saying they acted in God's name to vanquish their enemies.

After being roundly denounced by Jewish leaders and Republicans, MoveOn.org issued a mea culpa saying the two ads were in poor taste. But the group said they had been displayed in error as part of a contest inviting members of the public to create and send in their own ideas for anti-Bush television spots.

Neither of the two ads was ever aired on TV and by Monday had been removed from the "Bush in 30 Seconds" Web site (www.bushin30seconds.org) set up by the MoveOn.org Voter Fund.

The head of the Voter Fund, Wes Boyd, said his group posted more than 1,500 entries in all submitted by "ordinary Americans" and that the two Hitler spots "slipped through our screening process."

"None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund," Boyd's statement said. "We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions."

He accused Republican leaders of a "maliciously misleading" attempt to cast the two Hitler ads as sponsored by his group.

Nevertheless, the leaders of three major Jewish groups -- the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center -- roundly criticized MoveOn for placing the Hitler ads on the Internet.

They and Republican National Committee (news - web sites) Chairman Ed Gillespie all seized on MoveOn.org's own pledge in the ground rules for its "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest not to "post anything that would be in inappropriate for television."

"To compare the president of the United States, his fight against al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), with the politics of Hitler is ... shameful, it is beyond the pale, and has no place in the legitimate discourse of American politics," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Hier, Gillespie and other critics of MoveOn also demanded that Democrats seeking the presidential nomination in 2004 should speak out to renounce the Hitler ads.

MoveOn.org said Monday it was going ahead with its contest. It said the winning entry will be picked by a panel of celebrities and political pundits, including comedian Al Franken, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and Democratic political strategist James Carville.

The winning spot will be announced at a gala event Jan. 12 in New York and will be aired as a paid political commercial during the week of Bush's upcoming State of the Union address.

It is not the first time Bush has been compared to Hitler. In 2002, Germany's Justice Minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, resigned after creating an uproar by likening Bush's saber-rattling over Iraq to Hitler's use of foreign policy to conceal domestic woes.

Yesterday, the New York Post ran a long opinion column focusing exclusively on how much Presidential Candidate Howard Dean resembles Hitler, even calling him "Herr Howie." Of course, the Repub Nat'l Comm. hasn't issued a condemnation of that.

So forget the RNC. Why did three major Jewish groups complain about the ad? What's your spin for that? And I reject your notion that the ad got voted down. It got removed. If nobody had complained, that ad would probably have made the finals.

You know why it got pulled? Because Dean urged foreigners to donate to MoveOn since they couldn't legally donate to his campaign. In June last year, Dean won the MoveOn primary. Al Gore endorses both MoveOn and Dean. If these two ads hadn't gotten pulled, MoveOn would've smeared Gore and Dean more effectively than the RNC ever could because they didn't realize the ads were offensive. Dean probably had to call them and tell them to sh!tcan the ad because it would torpedo him. Probably already has.

That's the key point here. The MoveOn crowd liked the ads. They really do believe Bush is Hitler. Look at their judges- Garofolo, Stipe, Moore, Lange, Vetter, Moby. Avowed Bush haters. They would've loved that ad.

If anything, we jumped the gun by outing this ad. We should have kept our mouths shut until it was chosen as the winner.

By the way, welcome to FR. Enjoy your visit. Make a contribution while you're here. We're having a fundraiser.

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