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chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Whopper: George SorosOh, that comparison between Bush and the Nazis.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Saturday, Feb. 7, 2004, at 10:12 PM ET

George Soros: I have also been accused of comparing Bush to a Nazi. And I did not do it. I would not do it, exactly because I have lived under a Nazi regime. So I know the difference. But how come that I'm accused of that?

Q: Who accused you of that?

Soros: The Republican National Commission [sic.], or whatever, and a number of newspaper articles. And I—you know, I think I really—I'm upset about being accused of that. And I'm upset that I have to defend myself against this kind of accusation.

—Interview with billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who has spent more than $15 million to oppose President Bush's re-election, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Jan. 12, 2004.

"Soros believes that a 'supremacist ideology' guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. 'When I hear Bush say, "You're either with us or against us," it reminds me of the Germans.' It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ('The enemy is listening'). 'My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me,' he said in a soft Hungarian accent."

—Laura Blumenfeld,"Soros' Deep Pockets vs. Bush," in the Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2003.

(Thanks to James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" blog at OpinionJournal.com.)

Got a whopper? Send it to chatterbox@slate.com. To be considered, an entry must be an unambiguously false statement paired with an unambiguous refutation, and both must be derived from some appropriately reliable public source. Preference will be given to newspapers and other documents that Chatterbox can link to online.

Whopper Archive:
Jan. 30, 2004: Howard Dean
Jan. 10, 2004: President Bush
Jan. 5, 2004: Laura Bush

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