Speaking of book reviews, David Bernstein has a wonderful review of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America:

I've heard that some readers of The Plot Against America see it as some sort of prescient warning about our current political situation. I guess this appeals to the Bush=Hitler crowd, but I honestly didn't see any reasonable parallels between the plot of the book and America today, with one possible exception: just as the right-wing anti-interventionists of the late 1930s blamed the Jews for being warmongers to protect their own interests, left-wing anti-interventionists (along with the Pat Buchanan crowd, too) are doing the same today.

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

But others in the blogosphere still continue to insist that the Republicans are more fascist than the Democrats. As David Neiwert argues, religion is very close to fascism. Having a fascist ancestor also makes one suspect. As does contending that the Nazis were for separation of church and state. Declares Neiwert:

"Separation of church and state" was not what occurred under Nazism.

"We are Hitler’s joyous youth,
What need we Christian virtue!,
Our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler
Is always our redeemer!
No wicked priest can hinder us,
To sense that we are Hitler’s children;
We follow not Christ but Horst Wessel,
Away with incense and holy water!."

I certainly hope these guys aren't trying to force the facts to fit an agenda, but as David Neiwert concludes,

It's starting to sound like prophecy.

Over the years, I've grown used to people improperly blaming paganism for Nazism, then homosexuals for Nazism. So now I guess I'll have to get used to hearing about Adolf Hitler, Christian theocrat. (Which of course, dovetails quite nicely into the myth of Bush as Christian theocrat.) Perhaps mythology breeds mythology.

Sigh.

(Considering that Mr. Neiwert has accused me in the past of improperly crediting him with the ideas of others, I should point out that here he gives substantial credit to another blogospheric bastion against fascism, one Brian Leiter. Wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings or cause anyone to feel left out.)

MORE: Those who study the Nazis' religious connections shouldn't overlook Hitler's close ties with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and the latter's efforts not only to prevent the Jews from emigrating to Palestine, but to actually assist the Holocaust:

Bernard Lewis stated:

His objectives, as he explained on numerous occasions to German officials, were far-reaching. His immediate aim was to halt and terminate the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Beyond that, however, he aimed at much vaster purposes, conceived not so much in pan-Arab as in pan-Islamic terms, for a Holy War of Islam in alliance with Germany against World Jewry, to accomplish the Final Solution of the Jewish problem everywhere.

In June 1944, Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann's deputy for Slovakia and Hungary, told Dr. Rudolf Kasztner in Budapest that he was convinced that the Mufti had played a role in the decision to exterminate the European Jews... The importance of this role must not be disregarded ...The Mufti had repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he was maintaining contact, above all to Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution of the Palestinian problem.

In his conversation with Endre Steiner in Bratislava, Wisliceny said:

The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in execution of this plan...He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.

He was a "hero" of Yasser Arafat, his relative. (Via Charles Johnson, who'd probably be called a "fascist" for criticizing such fascists.)

The Mufti, by the way, was described by Malcolm X in his autobiography:

When I opened my door, just across the hall from me a man in some ceremonial dress, who obviously lived there, was also headed downstairs, surrounded by attendants. I followed them down, then through the lobby. Outside, a small caravan of automobiles was waiting. My neighbor appeared through the Jedda Palace Hotel's front entrance and people rushed and crowded him, kissing his hand. I found out who he was: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Later, in the hotel, I would have the opportunity to talk with him for about a half-hour. He was a cordial man of great dignity. He was well up on world affairs, and even the latest events in America.