Nicolai Brown may have been trying to be funny in his Thursday column “Democrats, the Republicans have your ideal candidate — George W. Bush,” but his claim that “Web sites such as MoveOn.org are pumping the ‘Bush is Hitler’ message, unaware that Bush’s presidency is one of the greatest things to happen to the Democratic party in a long time” is totally false and not at all funny.

I am one of more than 2 million people who are members of MoveOn.org, and the site has never said President Bush is the same as Hitler.

This is a misconception that was promoted by the Republican National Committee.

The RNC wants people to think MoveOn and its members believe that Bush is like Hitler — because it is afraid of the 2 million MoveOn members who constantly call and e-mail members of Congress and the Bush administration to express their disapproval of government policies that are more favorable to corporate interests than the people’s interests.

The RNC tried to promote the misconception that MoveOn said Bush is like Hitler after MoveOn.Org Voter Fund sponsored an ad contest called “Bush in 30 Seconds,” in which ordinary people could make their own 30- second ads about how they disagreed with President Bush’s policies.

Those who submitted ads did not have to be MoveOn.org members, and the winning ad was to be distributed with the help of MoveOn.org Voter Fund.

The winner was to be determined by the votes of MoveOn.org members who would view and rate the ads via Internet.

An ad that compared Bush to Hitler was submitted to the contest, but it was not one of the finalists. People did not like it. However, when big shots from the Republican National Committee found out about the ad, they tried to claim this ad had been conceived by MoveOn.org.

In fact, it was only submitted to a contest sponsored by a fund-raising arm of the site and does not reflect the opinion of MoveOn.org’s founders or its members. Comparison of Bush to Hitler does not help MoveOn.org’s goal of holding government more accountable to the people.

You can see the finalists and the winner for yourselves at www.bushin30seconds.org.

Mr. Brown also seems to be suggesting that MoveOn.org is somehow affiliated with the Democratic party. This is not true. MoveOn.org is a non-partisan political group that mobilizes its members by way of the Internet.

Many MoveOn.org members, like myself, vote Democratic, but just as many of them may vote Green or not consider themselves to belong to any political party. Some of them may even vote Republican!

We do not consider the incompetence and lies of George W. Bush and his administration to be anywhere close to the level of atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler’s regime.

The claim that MoveOn.org says “Bush is Hitler” is absurd and insulting.

Laura Messer

Sophomore

Spanish