It’s Always the Nazis

There’s an old trope that the only safe bad guys in Hollywood any more are the Nazis.  Any other group of bad guys has an advocacy group that will raise a ruckus, or Hollywood is worried about offending the all important overseas market for film distribution. (Hence the film adaptation of World War Z changed the bad guys from the Chinese to some mysterious source in Russia.)  It is doubtful you could today remake Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1994 action flick True Lies with the bad guys cast as Muslim terrorists (“Crimson Jihad”).  But everyone hates the Nazis, so they’ll still do as bad guys.  Works in pulp thrillers, too; about half of all thriller novels set in Latin America revolve around old Nazis in Brazil plotting (still) to take over the world.

This is prologue to the most hilarious detail in the Washington Free Beacon article on “the Hillary Papers,” drawn chiefly from the papers of the late FOB* Diane Blair.  Buried far down in story is an account of a memo from 1993 in which Blair reflects that “At this point BC not sure he can get re-elected; they’re killing him in the South, rise of fundamentalism, the Nazi’s. Some of that he did to himself—gay rights in the military. Others just hate the one who’s in.”

The Nazis?  Seriously?

* Friend of Bill, in case you’ve forgotten.

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