Another Unavoidable Bush-Nazi Analogy

I have nearly finished reading Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, a most excellent recently published book by historian Mark Mazower that, among other things, describes in chilling detail the Third Reich's systematic extermination of Jews, gypsies and other "undesirables." (Book review to follow.)

While I am in no way equating genocide with the Bush administration's embrace of torture, there are unavoidable similarities: Like the Nazis, the Bush White House knew what it was doing was wrong, tried to keep it secret, denied that it was happening when called out, and sought to cover it in a patina of philosophical and legal justifications.

There is another similarity, as well: Accountability.

We now learn that Senate Republicans are privately threatening to block the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees, including for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, by linking their approval to suppressing incriminating Bush era torture memos.

Irony Alert I: The OLC was the cockpit of the junk-law opinions handed up to the Bush White House to justify the unspeakable.

Irony Alert II: Some Obama administration insiders don't want to release the memos.

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Meanwhile, click here for my recent and past musings on Bush-Nazi analogies.