Desperate Huckabee plays Nazi card to outdo Trump

A politician who can't get anyone to pay attention to him becomes desperate. It makes him feel irrelevant, probably because he is.

Among the Republican candidates running for president, the most desperate, most irrelevant candidate was most likely to be the first one to play the Nazi card.

That turned out to be former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Over the weekend, Huckabee said of President Obama's negotiations with Iran, "This president's foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven."

A Holocaust reference will get a politician some attention. And that happened with Huckabee.

But it fades. Fast.

And President Obama himself pointed out why such a comment is pathetic.

"The comments are part of a general pattern that we've seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren't so sad," Obama sad, speaking from Ethiopa. "Maybe it's just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines."

That's exactly it.

Trump is drawing all the headlines and the other candidates are at a loss. Under normal circumstances this would be way too early for the Nazi card to be played. But the other candidates can't figure out how to be noticed. Perhaps because they're not, you know, interesting.

So Plan B is become even more outrageous than Trump.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said of Huckabee's comment, "Whatever one's views of the nuclear agreement with Iran – and we have been critical of it, noting that there are serious unanswered questions that need to be addressed – comments such as those by Mike Huckabee suggesting the president is leading Israel to another Holocaust are completely out of line and unacceptable."

Awhile back, Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz.,used a Nazi reference to get some attention.

Speaking of President Obama's Pacific Rim free trade trade deal, Schweikert said, "Some of the crazy things I'm seeing put out in the media by big labor, the willingness to make up stories, to make up facts -- Goebbels would be proud of them."

Goebbels was the Reich minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany.

Schweikert's comment was condemned, but it made a few headlines. And, honestly, making headlines hasn't happened much for Schweikert before or since.

That same fate will most likely await any desperate Republican presidential candidate who used the Nazi reference. For instance ... what's-his-name.