Dr. J.’s Short Shot No. 21: Mitt Romney and Hitler’s Pal, Henry Ford

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Mitt Romney has been anointed as the candidate of the Republican Far Right since the Fox “News” Channel started touting him right after the 2006 elections. (The Republicans have Rightists and Far-Rightists, and nothing else, it should be noted.) It is apparent that he is now the fair-haired boy of that wing. Too bad for McCain, who is just as far-right on policy as Romney, if not further to the right, but over the past several years, he made the mistake of appearing to be a “moderate,” with a sense of humor too. MSNBC’s Don Imus, who is totally against the Iraq War and voted for Kerry in 2004, has already announced that he will be voting for McCain in 2008, because he is a “moderate” and “likable.”

So even though he is being as much of a pander-bear to the far-Right as he can be (and on 2/19/07 came out for repeal of Roe v. Wade), McCain appears to have lost it with them, apparently for such sins as opposing Bush on torture and calling for even more troops to be sent to Iraq than Bush is sending (Congress or no). As for Rudy, he is trying to join up with the pander-bear too, but a public cross-dresser will have a hard time convincing such true far- (and in his case Christian-) Rightists as Tony Perkins that they are Right enough. So it’s Romney, Mormon or no, only a very recent conversion to anti-choice-ism or no. His mystical “conversion,” he tells us, came during some discussion about human cloning. How you get from there to denying all of us the right to our beliefs about when life begins under the penalty of the criminal law is beyond me, but it seems to be working.

And then he goes and makes his “official” announcement in front of the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. Interesting choice (and it is a story that seems to have come and gone). Fascinating choice. Henry Ford was the pre-eminent American anti-Semite in the pre-World War II period. He began a close ideological and publishing association with Hitler in the 1920s, and also began funding the Nazi Party at that time. In 1938, Hitler awarded him “The Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle,” also given to Mussolini earlier that year. It is interesting to note that during the 1930s, Ford provided major assistance to the Soviet Union in starting up their automobile industry (which of course a decade later would being turning out tanks in untold masses to fight against — Hitler’s tanks, some of which were likely built at the Ford plant in Cologne, which for some strange reason, was never bombed by the Allies.) For this, the 20th century’s other great dictator, Stalin, made him a Hero of the Soviet Union. I doubt that there is anyone else in history who has the distinction of holding those two “honors.” And it was in front of the Ford museum that the current darling of the Republican Far-Right, Mitt Romney, chose to make his official announcement for the Presidency. Ain’t history fun!

Originally published on BuzzFlash on Fri, 02/16/2007 – 1:25pm. Steven Jonas
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/048

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly contributing author for The Political Junkies, and contributing editor for The Moving Planet Blog.