Martin Bashir   |  February 20, 2013

Bashir: Conservative double standard on Rove, Obama ‘Hitler’ comparisons

Martin Bashir points out that while some in the Tea Party may be quick to apologize when the far right compares Karl Rove to Hitler – conservatives are far less sympathetic when the comparison involves President Obama.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> it's time now to clear the air. and in the current republican civil war , it seems that there's very little love lost for a one-time behemoth of the party. that may be because karl rove has made it clear that he's sick and tired of republicans putting forward candidates who are incapable of winning.

>> the more we examine the quality of these candidates from top to bottom, the more likely we ending up with fewer christine o'donnell's and more rand paul.

>> unfortunately, mr. rove, a man once garlanded with praise by republicans has angered and annoyed tea party activists who really rather like people like christine o'donnell, todd aiken, sarah palin and richard murdoch . so yesterday the tea party patriots, a well established group within that muchlovement, sent out a message with this photo shopped image featuring karl rove in a nazi uniform. the e-mail subject line read "wipe the smirk off karl rove 's" face. the tea party patriots say this was a mistake purpoerpetrated by a vendor and have since apologized to mr. rove. but it is much more serious than a mistake. it is reprehensible that anyone in full possession of their faculties would employ naziism for political purposes, except, that is, this is something that the tea party and a number of other conservatives have been doing for ages. you may recall this billboard which was designed and paid for by the north iowa tea party and featured the president alongside hitler just over two years ago. and this was rush limbaugh during the presidential campaign last year.

>> what was hitler more concerned with? propaganda. did hitler succeed for a time? yeah. he did. what was clinton more concerned with, truth or propaganda? what's obama more concerned with, truth or propaganda?

>> so, it would appear that invoking hitler and the philosophy that led directly to the holocaust is perfectly fine when it's applied to the president but not when it comes to karl rove . conservative hypocrisy on hitler at its blatant best. thanks so much for watching. chris matthews and "hardball" is next.