Rush Limbaugh flunks Graphic Design 101

Hot on the the heels of the Obama-as-the-Joker poster that has mysteriously turned up on freeway walls in L.A. and on the Internet, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday compared the logo of the president's healthcare reform plan with the graphic design of Hitler's Nazi symbol. Reproduced here, both designs are juxtaposed on Limbaugh's website.

"[You] will find that the Obama healthcare logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo," Limbaugh asserted to his listeners. "I'm going to show you people watching on the Dittocam this, and there you are: The middle frame is the Obama healthcare logo. At the bottom is an official Nazi logo, eagle and everything, spread wings, or bird with spread wings."

Limbaugh also urged listeners to visit a website called "Sweetness & Light," where conservative blogger Steve Gilbert, who was involved with the swift boat veterans campaign against Vietnam War hero John Kerry in 2004, compared the two designs. Gilbert claims that the "similarity" is apt because Obama is following Hitler's Nazi plan for "cradle-to-grave nationalized healthcare."

There's just one hitch: Asserting a resemblance between the two logos is like saying Limbaugh resembles Gary Busey because both men have two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a drug addiction. Obama's healthcare logo includes no eagle, Roman symbol of imperial authority, and it has no swastika, the bent-arm cross designed by Hitler himself as the emblem of National Socialism. Instead, the Obama design surmounts the red, white and blue landscape of his presidential campaign logo with a caduceus, the winged staff entwined with serpents that derived from the rod of Asclepius, son of Greek god Apollo. An ancient symbol of healing, the rod is often used as a medical logo. So the Obama design shows a medical symbol above the American landscape.

Make that two hitches: The claim that Nazism embraced healthcare is obscene.

So much for Graphic Design 101. No imperial eagle, no swastika, false messaging -- but other than that, darn close!

--Christopher Knight

Credit: rushlimbaugh.com

Comments

[Joseph]

You guys are so right on it!
Rush, rushed to pop off his mouth again, but that is not the saddest part. The saddest part is, how many of his listeners, or readers will look into what he said, and then decide for themselves, or how many will just believe him as if it's the gospel it's self. There are more details and illustrations at this Blog: http://obama-health-care-logo.blogspot.com/. Would love some feedback.
Keep up the good work guys!

[Matt]

I hate to say it but it does sort of look like the Nazi symbol, as does the part of the website where you're supposed to tattle on people. I wouldn't suggest that this is deliberate, but it is similar.

[Randy Kelly]

You fail to mention that his comments were in reponse to the speaker of the house calling the oposition at town hall meeting nazis (she said they were wearing swastikas)
And yeah the two logos look similar.

[Jeff]

Any attempt to compare Americans or our leaders as Nazis is wrong. Limbaugh is wrong, but so were the comments made my Speaker Pelosi. Please cover and admonish both sides for their ignorance. Thank you!

[Hoffmann]

Limbaugh calling anybody but himself a Nazi? Drugs have destroyed his fragile mind.

[Andy]

Heh. You know, while we may not remember exactly what it's called, most of us recognize a caduceus. Unless we're being disingenuous.

[Hoffmann]

The only think that looks like a Nazi is Rush!

[Tim]

The comparison to be made is between Obama's health care logo and that of the US Marines. In outline, they are nearly identical. Does Rush think the Marines are a Nazi organization?

[Joe the plumber]

This is all part of the vast right wing conspiracy, cant you people see that??!?

[Donald Frazell]

Um, Nazism was National Socialism. It promised affordable everything to its people, from healthcare to cars, like the Volkswagen. It kept capitalism, but Hitler ranted and raved in his speeches about taking care of the babies and grandmothers and such demogogic lies. He was a mesmerizing speaker, of a truly religous fervor.

But it was at the cost to others, it was Nationalism, gone crazy, it was about the Gemranic peoples being superior and so enslaving the rest of the inferior world. It could not work as an economic model,and so needed a slave workforce to give to the lovely Teuton's their primacy and stability, closer to what Dick Chaney espoused, but even he was far from being the self abosrbed lunatic that Hitler was. Well, kinda far.

art collegia delenda est
What exactly do they teach in art school these days? Obviously not history. See you at the Braley in two week, and Barnsdall CK

[Seth]

Every developed country in the world, from England to Japan, has cradle to grave national health care. So do quite a few developing countries. Does that meant they are all following Hitler's Nazi plan?

[Graham]

now that I see the two together, the designs DO appear to have the same elements. Thanks for pointing that out. Nazis were just national socialists. if they weren't so open (and successful) in the more radical end of their platform, they would have been considered fairly mainstream social democrats. even today. the similarity in the logos might have been unintended but I would call it a "freudian slip."

[Melanie Keffer]

Always "right wing conspiracy" excuse fallback. Just what is the right wing conspiring to do? Even Bush himself defended a citizen's right to protest when they were outside his Texas Ranch . . . . And they were not exactly saying nice things about him.

Not so with the current President . . . . . When have you ever seen a President of the United States, Democrat or Republican, throw such a childlike fit over someone criticizing his policies and plans? Couldn't be that he is worried he won't "get his way," could it?

Limbaugh was responding to Pelosi's remarks about Republicans being Nazis. Since when is it wrong to attend a town hall meeting, organized by Democrats by the way, and object to what they are saying?

Grow up folks. If you dish it out, you'd better be able to take it when it comes back at you.

[mgers]

You honestly can't see a resemblance? If I showed you a picture of a crow and a hawk, would you say they were different animals as well?

Sometimes all it takes is for you to put down your pitchfork for five seconds.

[H J A]

"Limbaugh was responding to Pelosi's remarks about Republicans being Nazis. "

Wrong. Nancy stated that some "protesters" were carrying Nazi symbols. And they were. Get your facts straight.
The disigns are nothing alike. The winged symbol has been used by the medical society forever. I think it was Greek.

[Susan]

Actually, I think Rush has a point!

[mjs]

It is the old AMA logo!

[Esoteric Knowledge]

Easy.

Republicans: Nit-wit Psychopaths.

Liberals: Normal People.

If you want to look up Psychopathic Personality Disorder, please do so you you recongize people who are suffering from this illness.

Things are getting clearer and clearer for normal people who are realizing that Conservatives are simply Evil Nit-Wits...Low-IQ Pscyhopaths.

Please debate against these people!...They can be out debated at the drop of a hat! Abortion and Gay Marriage are not even issues! They are just a desire for control over other people's lives!

Nazis were fascists. And if you crack a book you can learn that fascism and socialism is on opposite sides of the political spectrum...you can also learn the difference between Nationalization/Liberal Democrats and Socialism which are two very different things.

[BetterRedThanDead]

I feel sorry for the whole lot of you.

Nazi Symbolism? Not even...

Stop whining already you W.A.S.P. 's, the tears have not stopped flowing since the General Elections.

You're all acting like what you really are, paranoid, spoiled, immature and ignorant followers of fashion. You want to bow and scrape to Limbaugh?
You want to have blind faith in Obama?

Get a life...

[David Kessler]

Federal health care/bird standing on ball

Federal heath care/bird standing on ball