As yesterday’s public letter from 400 rabbis declares, Glenn Beck’s promiscuous use of Holocaust and Nazi imagery to characterize those with whom he disagrees is disgraceful, and perhaps the recent outcry against the use of such imagery will tamp it down. But Beck’s effort to discredit George Soros by painting the financier of liberal causes as a 14-year-old accessory to genocide comes from a different playbook.

It’s the one used by Fox News’ Republican allies in campaigns against Democratic senators Max Cleland of Georgia and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Both were Vietnam war heroes, Cleland a triple amputee; and their moral statue derived in large measure from this service to their country. So the GOP tore them down by discrediting their military service.

Call Beck’s assault on Soros Holocaust Swift-boating. Naturally, Fox has responded by characterizing the rabbis as “a George Soros backed left-wing political organization that has been
trying to engage Glenn Beck primarily for publicity purposes.” Publicity for what? Holocaust denial?