Kurtz: 'Outrage' Media Ignored CNN Host Who Called Republicans 'Nazis'

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In the midst of a segment on Rush Limbaugh on Sunday morning's Reliable Sources portion of CNN's State of the Union, host Howard Kurtz scolded his journalistic colleagues for a remark which “totally got missed by the media,” how CNN host D.L. Hughley charged “that the Republican convention 'literally looks like Nazi Germany.' I don't understand how he can get away with saying that. I think that is an outrage.”

Kurtz, the Washington Post's media reporter, interjected his criticism after guest Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times, and formerly with TownHall.com, had defended RNC Chairman Michael Steele's characterization of Limbaugh's rhetoric as “ugly,” a slam on Limbaugh he made on Hughley's show, D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, last weekend. She guessed Steele was thinking of “Rush Limbaugh's interpretation of 'Barack the Magic you know what,' so when he said 'ugly,' that was ugly, that was a very ugly part of the discussion that was in the run up to his election.” (Of course, “Barack the Magic Negro” was a song parody inspired by a black writer who used that term in a Los Angeles Times op-ed about Obama.)

Carpenter's comment reminded Kurtz:

In that interview with D.L. Hughley, who coincidentally his show has now been dropped by CNN, Hughley said -- this totally got missed by the media -- that the Republican convention “literally looks like Nazi Germany.” I don't understand how he can get away with saying that. I think that is an outrage.

(Joan Walsh of Salon and PBS's David Brancaccio joined Carpenter in the three-guest panel.)

Matthew Balan's March 2 NewsBusters item (posted with video), “CNN's Hughley: Republicans 'Literally Look Like Nazi Germany,'” reported:

CNN host D.L. Hughley turned to the standard left-wing tactic of playing the Nazi card against Republicans on his program on Saturday evening: "The tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied -- like you didn't have to go much further than the Republican National Convention....It literally look[s] like Nazi Germany." He went on to say that blacks weren't welcome in the party: "It just does not seem -- like not only are we not welcome -- not only are we not welcome, but they don't even care what we think." He later described the GOP as "reactionary."