Appearing on the January 29 "Rachel Maddow Show," fellow MSNBCer Chris
Matthews compared Republican conservatives to the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Communist regime that racked up a body count of some two million during its reign of terror [1]:
What's going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going on in that party, where they're going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you're not far right, you're not right enough.
Matthews
was on the program to discuss President Obama's live televised
exchanges with Republican Congressmen earlier in the day at the House
GOP retreat in Baltimore.
His comparison is, of course, patently
offensive not just to conservative Republicans but more importantly to
the survivors of the Khmer Rouge, many of whom became refugees in the United States [2]
and who still bear in their souls hellish nightmares of the regime as
well as survivor's guilt for being among the fortunate to have escaped
with their lives.
- Ken Shepherd is the managing editor the MRC's blog site, NewsBusters.org.