Ads compare Bush to Hitler

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Jewish advocacy groups led an avalanche of sharp criticism yesterday against two potential television ads that compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler and were posted on a Web site run by MoveOn.org.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress said the ads were beyond the pale of political discussion. Rep. Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, called them "hate-mongering."

"Certainly myself, as an American and as a Jew, I'm disgusted by the casual use of Hitler by liberal Democrats and groups such as MoveOn.org," said Mr. Cantor, the House chief deputy majority whip.

"To compare any American president, much less George W. Bush, to Adolf Hitler, cheapens the sacrifice of millions of lives that have been lost by this country over its history and really denigrates the efforts by the American military," Mr. Cantor said.

The two 30-second ads were submitted as part of a contest MoveOn.org sponsored. The organization invited submissions of spots criticizing Mr. Bush's record. Two of the submissions compared Mr. Bush to the Nazi dictator of Germany, whose regime killed 6 million Jews during World War II.

One ad used computer effects to morph a picture of Hitler into one of Mr. Bush.

Another ad compared Mr. Bush's push for war to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq to Hitler's push for Nazi domination in Europe and said Hitler's war crimes are "2003's foreign policy."

Jack Rosen, president of the AJC, writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, said the comparison is "not only historically specious, it is morally outrageous."