Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities had a wonderful post last summer called "IN THE FUTURE, EVERYONE WILL BE HITLER FOR 15 MINUTES" in which he catalogued 40 or so notable Hitler comparisons (as Jeff noted, the Bush = Hitler meme is so vast that this entire gallery had to be devoted to it.)

As it happens, I haven't yet been considered worthy of my fifteen minutes of Hitlerdom, but now I see that the bar has been raised by Hugo Chavez (one of Jeff's featured Hitleristas).

Merely being a Hitler is now passe, according to Chavez, because there's a new standard. To really stand out on today's bell curve requires being worse than Hitler.

"The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush," Chavez said from a stage decorated with a huge red image of himself as a young soldier.

I think it's unfair that being a "mere Hitler" would become a standard of mediocrity.

MORE: Googling Hitler these days is probably a Nazi like activity, so I used Yahoo. Anyway, it's probably worth reporting that "worse than Hitler" is considerably more popular than "just like Hitler."

Sigh.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Perhaps the intent of Chavez wasn't so much to malign Bush as it was to rehabilitate and soften Hitler by comparing him to "a suckling baby."

I might not be looking deeply enough into the inner workings of Chavez's mind.

(At least he didn't compare Hitler to an unborn fetus.)

MORE: While Chavez is in a position to grab headlines, his thought really wasn't original. According to Daimnation, at least one blogger beat him to it years ago.