Inside the Beltway

DER FURY

NBC, MSNBC and CNN have showcased a controversial image of President Obama depicted as Hitler during recent news coverage of contentious town-hall meetings and health care reform.

“They run dialogue and video over this poster and clearly imply that either Rush Limbaugh or ‘conservatives’ in general are behind the image, which they use as a symbol of extremism. But look closely, and you discover the real credit. It goes to the Lyndon LaRouche political action committee. You can see it. It’s right there,” Seton Motley tells Inside the Beltway.

The Media Research Center communications director and blogger calls the coverage “pathetic journalism” that fails to inform the public about the origins of the image or important health care legislation.

“Are these major news organizations willfully ignorant? They make a slap at the right when this Obama-as-Hitler poster is clearly coming from the left. It’s absurd, and it’s dangerous. The public is not getting the real story,” Mr. Motley says.

The LaRouche folks deny nothing.

“The image of Obama with a toothbrush mustache was initiated by LaRouche PAC organizers. The captions vary: ‘Is This Your President?’ was one; a recent one was ‘I’ve changed.’ ” spokeswoman Nancy Spannaus tells Beltway.

“Lyndon LaRouche and his organization have declared war against Obama’s so-called health care reform because it is a direct copy of the policy Hitler declared in October 1939, when Hitler issued the order for euthanasia against those determined, by a board of medical experts, to have ‘lives unworthy to be lived,’ ” Ms. Spannaus says.

“LaRouche has also put forward the clear alternative: cancel the bailout and HMOs, implement bankruptcy reorganization of the financial system, and return to the Hill-Burton system that made our health care the best in the world.”

MISSED HIS MISSUS

Uh-oh, winding cultural moment ahead: Bill Clinton is getting better favorability ratings than Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to Rasmussen Reports - 58 percent to 53 percent, respectively.

Fresh from his own diplomacy in North Korea, Mr. Clinton claims he did not see his spouse in her peevish appearance Monday, where she lashed out at a Congolese student who she thought had inquired about the former president.

“Have you seen the video from Africa?” Les Trent of CBS’ “Inside Edition” asked Mr. Clinton Wednesday night.

“No. I haven’t,” he replied.

Well, everyone else has. Mr. Clinton can always go to YouTube, where versions of the video have been viewed close to a half-million times.

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