South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint is taking some heat for remarks he made last evening at the National Press Club in Washington. Promoting his book Saving Freedom, DeMint told the audience that, "Part of what we're trying to do in "Saving Freedom" is just show that where we are, we're about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy." While DeMint, whose fellow Republican Jim Inhofe is the one colleague standing in the way of the coveted "Dumbest Senator" designation, may not be the brightest bulb in the chamber, he is, at least on this point, not necessarily incorrect. There are actually several eerie parallels between the current-day United States and Germany during the rise of Hitler.

• Powerful Jews control the banks and the media
• Decadent homosexuals corrupt our youth and pollute our theaters with their degenerate art
• We are saddled by immense debt from ill-advised military adventurism
• Our financial system has been bankrupted by the actions of an impulsive leader whose ascension to power was a result of his father having previously held the throne
• A group of conservative malcontents demonize and misrepresent the government with an amount of influence that is disproportionate to their small size
• There is something uncomfortably creepy about Joel Grey

Scary, right? Maybe we all owe Jim an apology.