Mike Huckabee defends comparing Holocaust to debt crisis

Fox News host Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he would not apologize for comparing the federal debt to those who did nothing to stop the Nazi death camps after he was condemned by a prominent Holocaust awareness group.

Over the weekend, Huckabee gave a speech to the National Rifle Association in Pittsburgh, where he explained that at Israel’s Holocaust museum he looked over his daughter’s shoulder and saw her write, "Why didn’t somebody do something?" in their guest book.

"We cannot afford to be a generation that leaves our children with nothing but a huge debt and the very erosion of the freedoms that our founders and our fathers died and gave us so valiantly," he then said. "And that’s why I say, 'Let there never be a time in this country where some father has to look over his daughter’s shoulder and see her ask this haunting question: Why didn’t somebody do something?'"

The Anti-Defamation League, which devotes itself to fighting Holocaust deniers and revisionists, condemned the comparison.

"It is highly inappropriate to use America's mounting debt crisis as another occasion to invoke Nazis and the Holocaust, particularly on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time dedicated to memorializing, not trivializing, the six million Jews and millions of others who perished at the hands of the Nazis," Abraham Foxman, ADL National Director, said in a statement.

On the website for his political action committee, Huckabee demanded that Foxman apologize to him and retract his "uninformed and misguided" attack.

"Israel and the Jewish people have no stronger advocate than Mike Huckabee," he said. "I have traveled to Israel numerous times since 1973, have spoken at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, met with several Prime Ministers and Presidents of Israel over the years, testified in committee hearing at the Knesset and have taken numerous groups and hundreds of visitors to Israel."

Foxman also condemned Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for comparing the tax burden future generations may face to the Holocaust.

"We hope that Rep. Bachmann, Mike Huckabee and others will weigh their words more carefully and stop invoking this offensive analogy," he said.

Image courtesy of David Ball