Deconstructing Hank Williams's Comments

Hank Williams Jr. compared Obama and Boehner playing golf to Hitler and Netanyahu playing golf. He later elaborated that Obama is the enemy.

As you know, I love a good Hitler reference as much as the next guy. In fact, just a few days before this controversy, I taunted another owner in my fantasy football league, "It's time to destroy a guy who has been mistaken for my twin and actually likes pulpy orange juice. You know who else has been mistaken for my twin and liked pulpy orange juice? Hitler."

The problem with Hank's Hitler metaphor is that it made absolutely no fucking sense. No matter what side of the political divide you're on, I don't see how Obama and Boehner playing golf together is bad. So, he's making a really stupid point to begin with.

But the use of Netanyahu is really where a simple Czarist pogrom turns into a Hitler-like holocaust. Netanyahu is, of course, the Prime Minister of Israel. Israel existed only after 1948. Hitler died in 1945. Netanyahu himself was born in 1949.

But even if we enter some mythical land where Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of Israel while Hitler is in power in Germany, playing golf could be a positive thing. For Hitler, it would be a good PR stunt. For Netanyahu, it would be a chance to humanize Jews in Hitler's eyes. At the very least, it's an opportunity to beat Hitler at golf and further dispel his belief in the superiority of the Aryan race.

How Obama and Boehner relate to any of that is totally beyond me. Much like the brown-haired guy on Fox and Friends who isn't Steve Ducey, I just can't wrap my head around the metaphor. But then again, I'm not hammered right now.