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OSCSSW shows again the extent of his intelligence - Nazis must have been commies cause they had the word socialist in their name. A trifle simplistic perhaps?

Not much to impress here, the author has made a clear partisan attack attempting to link the world's most evil regimes to the left (like it's some identifiable grouping!) and has received support on here from those who identify as being on the right and feel that this attack restores some `balance' as they are sick of the right getting the `blame' for the Nazis.

Blaming those of today's right for Hitler or even using the common insult of branding a right-wing person a Nazi is about as baseless as asserting Nazis were of the left. Have you people ever heard that two wrongs do not make a right?

In no particular order, Electric, herewith is my reply . . .

First, on journalism, mate, not much you can teach me there. On your headline example, practically speaking, a headline is not written before the page is laid out. The page is laid out and the individual stories are then subbed. The sub-editor who finds he/she has a story to sub about the latest opinion poll results which show a four per cent lift in Bush's approval rating will not be thinking about the political slant they can put on the heading, but rather how much space they have. The goal is to write a heading which attracts the reader's eye, without being misleading in terms of what the story actually says, within the alloted space. If you have ever done it, and it would seem from your comments that you haven't, that is the challenge of the down-table sub. Doing it quickly enough to move on to the next story so that the paper gets out on time is rather important too. Putting particular slants on stories through a heading would occur, but it would be rare, and on the occasions where I can recall seeing something that would fit this bill, I've seen a more senior sub change the offending heading. By the way, I would not accept any of your heading examples - three because they contain percentages and two because they give Bush a possesive, clearly unnecessarily. `Bush approval up' would be ok if it fit the space - it is factually correct. `Bush approval rising' would only be ok if there was a trend there. But both of these are boring. Interesting headlines can be quirky, clever or insightful. If you had a pic with the story, you might be able to angle something off that. Or if there was another story from the day before about Bush which could give it some context. But it does come back to the space allocated. If you have only short single deck then the first of my examples would probably have to do.

As for reporting casualties, and the apparent lack of comparisons to the Vietnam War or other conflicts, that to me is more opinion than objective reporting - and I am certain opinion writers have made that argument. I've made it myself, here and elsewhere. You say objective reporting would note the casualties with regret. Actually, truly objective reporting would make no such pronouncements. But reporters are not truly objective, dispassionate observers, and nor do we want them to be. Reporters are part of our community, and so they are likely to put on a tone on such reports that implies it ain't exactly good news, boys and girls. But the other point here is it not up to reporters to make arguments for or against a conflict, or to, as you would suggest, put casualties in context. If a politician wants to make the argument that casualties really ain't that bad then let him or her, and I'm sure it would be reported. I would predict a response from other politicians / mothers of dead soldiers that such an argument is trivialising their deaths and is insensitive to the pain of families. That's probably why the first politician would be reluctant to make the argument in the first place, unless he/she likes to stir the possum.

Before I finish on the topic of journalism, which is actually entirely irrelevant to this discussion but I enjoy it, you say that journalists aren't exactly luminaries and they are led astray by academics. True enough on the first count, although some of the finest minds around have been and are, but on the second you miss the most important point. Journalists are not journalists until they are out of their sheltered little schools and in the real world of a news room, where experienced journalists and the general public will slowly but surely bash the academic nonsense they are taught out of their heads. I despair at those who feel that journalists are bred at a university. They're not. They earn the right through a journalism degree to get a start. To become a real journalist they have to do the job, and that job on a day to day basis does not involve talking to academics. It involves getting out there and talking to every day people, people of widely different beliefs. After a decade or more in journalism, good journalists will look back and realise that it was the experience on the job that really counted.

Second, and talking about irrelevancies, your political beliefs are irrelevant to this discussion. You really did write a long and unnecessary post didn't you?

Third, on the credibility of the author. You conceded he was not objective. If an article is not objective, it lacks credibility. That is a fact. That lack of objectivity means the author cannot be trusted to deal with the issue. How can I - as the reader - have faith that he has not twisted the meaning of quotes or used evidence in a way designed to mislead? If you want to make an argument, then doing it objectively and dispassionately ensures that the reader will take your arguments at face-value. When I read an article that is so obviously tainted in the author's personal bias, then why would I take it seriously? So, yes, I have blanket rejected the author's article and suggested that instead we look at the issue of what the Nazis were ourselves . . . objectively!

Fourth, this little habit of blanket accusations. `The left does this', `the right does this'. In your case, you suggest the left constantly uses the Nazi regime as an attack on the right. Nonsense. Some individuals may from time to time attack other individuals with this generally ridiculous insult, but to say there is a conglomerate of people called the left who are constantly attacking this conglomerate of people called the right with such a crude barb is nonsense. Pure and simple. Labelling someone of the right a Nazi is as stupid as labelling someone of the left a communist - unless, of course, they actually are. Calling people of the right Nazis when in the vast majority of cases they aren't is probably one of the least intelligent insults ever devised. There would have to be very few true Nazis in America today, surely. It is also such a juvenile insult that responding to its use by saying `oh we're not Nazis, Nazis were communists - which means you leftie' (the tone of the original article and some of the rantings here) is almost as juvenile. Almost, not quite.

Fifth, why do I not believe it is right to call the Nazis marxists or communists? Well, for a start, the only arguments in favour of that contention tend to be the words of Hitler and his cohorts. We know their words were often very different from their actions. But let's brew it down simply - the Nazis did not believe in a class struggle (a major aspect of Marxism, a deal-breaker right there in my opinion), the Nazis believed in individual property rights (again, against Marxism), the Nazis were pro-big business (as long as they supported the Nazis, some would add), the Nazis were highly nationalistic (against Marx) and - the obvious - the Nazis rejected Marxism and actively fought communists. Their pro-worker rhetoric has been described by many as popularism, not communism. There is a clear difference there.