One last bit about this Hitler thing

I had hoped I'd never have to say this, but I'm about to bridge the gap between Hitler and child pornographers.

Ottawa has gone a tad loopy in recent weeks, with a few of our elected officials saying things that they probably never should have said sober. In a debate on the ending of the gun registry Conservative MP Larry Miller compared the registry and its proponents to Hitler, then took it back, then took it back that he took it back.

Shortly after, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said opposition members who attacked the government's new electronic surveillance are standing with child pornographers. He later tip-toed away from that one after pretty much the whole country decided the bill was kind of dictatorial and creepy.

Now, I'm no rocket surgeon but I could have told Miller and Toews that quoting Hitler or likening your political opponents to child molesters is probably going to backfire. If nothing else, it opens you up to equally cheap shots in retaliation.

Speaking of...

My colleague from the Hot Room (the old parliamentary press gallery room on Parliament Hill, so named because everyone who works there is ridiculously good looking) Kaven Baker-Voakes of Empire News initially came across this uncannily germane Hitler quote. He decided it would be in poor taste to use it, but I have no such reservations. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to take smear politics meta with Hitler on the internet surveillance bill:

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation," - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf.