Your Daily Nazi: On Nazi Analogies

In politics, they're hardly ever a good idea;however, they do appear to be a staple of the Canadian version. For example, as far as I have been able to determine, there was at least one analogy of some government policy to Neville Chamberlain made in every parliamentary session from 1998 to 2007. My favorite came from 1995, when Preston Manning himself famously uttered:

Any government that can talk itself into believing that a separatist veto over the Constitution of Canada helps national unity can talk itself into any other kind of concession. It is the Neville Chamberlain approach to constitutional negotiation: unity in our time through irrational concessions. When Winston Churchill was asked how to deal with a Prime Minister taking that approach, he replied: ``If the Prime Minister trips, he must be sustained; if he makes mistakes, they must be covered; if he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed; but if he is no good, he must be poleaxed''.

To which the honourable Herb Gray replied:

Mr. Speaker, in the justice system there is a provision whereby a judge can order somebody to be sent for a mental examination for a period of 30 days. Mr. Speaker, I was thinking that we might give you that authority and that the leader of the Reform Party be the first candidate for that procedure.

To which some honourable members responded: Oh, oh. Sounds like an appropriate response in this latest instance as well.