Five Rules Worth Adopting Immediately

By now you may have read that the Congressman from Georgia's 10th District, Paul Broun, has compared Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler:

"We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him (Obama) to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road."

If you have missed this item, you may find editorials about it here and here. The Congressman has evidently apologized. Good for him; but I am here to suggest we all immediately adopt the five following rules (stolen from this Joe Posnanski's blog):

Rule 1: It is never a good idea to invoke the name of Hitler to make any unrelated point.
Rule 2: However, if you plan to bring up Hitler in historical context, see Rule 1.
Rule 3: In certain rare cases, when you are interested in using Hitler to prove a larger truth, see Rule 1.
Rule 4: The one exception to this is … See Rule 1.
Rule 5: Yeah. Rule 1. Always.

Joe Posnanski was writing about a quote from college football analyst Lou Holtz. It was a pretty stupid quote.

But here is the thing: you always look pretty stupid when you are use Hitler in any kind of comparison - unless you are comparing genocidal despots. If you cannot get your point across that idea/person "X" is bad/evil/sucks, then punt. Or set your head on fire. Or something else less dramatic than saying "he's/its like Hitler".

And Congress Broun, when you apologized for your comments why did you have to say, "I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that." Anyone? That would be basically everyone on the planet; some will certainly have cause to be offended more than others - but really, you caught everyone with that zinger. Please see Rules 1 through 5 and apply immediately.