John Kasich's New Ad Features 'Journalist' Who REALLY Screwed Up: Misused Nazi Phrase Emblazoned Over The Gates Of Auschwitz

Mytheos Holt Admitted He Was A Dolt

 CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The star of Republican John Kasich's latest television ad apologized to his entire college campus for comparing the extermination camp's "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- the phrase millions passed while being herded to the gas chambers -- to Obama's "Yes we can."

Mytheos Holt publicly had to retract his words, which appeared in a column in the Wesleyan Argus not quite two years ago.  Now Holt -- who openly admitted he was a dolt -- is going to pop up in a John Kasich TV spot that attacks Gov. Ted Strickland for false and misleading ads.  Holt claimed in his apology that he wrongly thought "Arbeit Macht Frei" was simply a German campaign slogan.  His knowledge gap proved offensive and disgusting -- it's a phrase forever associated with murder, starvation, slave labor, brutal experiments on children, and ovens, those awful ovens, the soul stealers.  The Daily Bellwether has the apology here:

Holt apologizes

By Mytheos Holt

"A few hours after my column ran this Tuesday (“Mytheology: Wesleyan Viewed from the Right: It's a Brand New Day,” Nov. 11, 2008, Volume CXLIV, Number 19) I received an angry e-mail from a friend about my usage of the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei.”

I was under the impression that he was reacting against my implied comparison between two arguably totalitarian slogans, so I replied back snappishly, but he then informed me that it had been written over the gates at Auschwitz. I was shocked and horrified to learn this, and so I apologize for using that phrase. I had intended it merely as a reference to what I thought was an oft-used campaign slogan in Nazi Germany, NOT to imply that Obama was on the verge of committing genocide.

I realize that I was wrong not to research the phrase. If anyone should have done so, it would be a half-Jewish student whose mother's side of the family was fortunate enough to escape Europe before Hitler could get to them.  This was an extreme comparison, and I am deeply sorry to anyone who was offended by the column.

Anthony Fossacecca at Ohio Daily Blog says Holt is a rookie partisan Hack who has been in journalism only since the Spring. Fossacecca didn't know about the death camp furor, which The Daily Bellwether discovered after reading Holt's columns in a campus newspaper.  Here's Fossacecca:

"Republican Gubernatorial Candidate John Kasich is about to launch a new ad later today attacking Governor Ted Strickland for running false and misleading ads. In the spot, the Kasich campaign cites one source for their attack on Strickland : National Review blogger Mytheos Holt. And Holt is hardly a credible source. Until last spring, the poor kid was writing for The Wesleyan Argus in an ultra-conservative column called "Mytheology" before he graduated and grabbed a desk at NRO. He's also grabbed coffee for folks at Accuracy in Media and shadowy Bush group, Freedom's Watch.
With a crack resume like that, it's no wonder Team Kasich swooped in to use him as the only credible journalist willing to shill for the team.
In the spot, he's quoted calling Ted's spots "blatant misrepresentation of the truth.... ridiculous... not one sentence in context."
With youthful exaggerations like that, perhaps he should have run for State Treasurer."

Ohio's Tectonic Shift: Reports From 'Liberal' North Sound Like 'Conservative' SW

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Any minute I expect to pick up a map saying Cleveland and Toledo are on the Ohio River and Cincinnati is built upon the shores of Lake Erie. Because something is plumb topsy-turvy about the state. Its north shore -- the liberal Democratic heartland -- seems aflame with reports of Free Speech oppression.

Tom Suddes, my old colleague from the newspaper business, always contended the "mouthbreathers," his word for the crowd most uncomfortable with people who liked to exercise their constitutional rights, infested downstate Ohio. They were generally Republicans who had gun racks in every pick up truck spotted south of Interstate 80.

Could be he was wrong. Could be that NEO is now SWOhio. Could be the heat. Something is out of sort with Ohio's political map because anti-taxers managed to collect enough signatures in Hamilton County (ground zero of Suddes' mouthbreathers) for a ballot measure aimed at repealing a proposed sales tax hike for a new jail -- and NOBODY was arrested or pushed around by the authorities who imposed the tax. Contrast that to what's happened in the liberal Up North these past few days.

The anti-tax crowd is being hassled when they try to circulate petitions against a sales tax increase in Cuyahoga County. This follows a Kent anti-war protester being ticketed for sticking an "Impeach Bush" sign in a public garden last month. And it fits right alongside Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's Aug. 12, 2007 order that closed a public park so anti-Nazi protesters from the University of Toledo could not raise cane about the fascists in our midst.

There's more. Gloria Ferris had a difficult time trying to collect names on anti-tax petitions near Jacobs Field, where a cop and security guard tried to keep her at bay. Gloria said:

"We weren't there ten minutes when we were told that we would have to move along by a security guard. I asked where we could stand, and he said I will get my supervisor if yo want. I said no don't bother I will ask that Cleveland Policeman over there. The security guard very politely kept insisting I should speak to the head of security at Jacobs Field. Probably because the police officer said he didn't know what was public or private.

"By that time, someone else in our group had talked to the head security guy who told him that three feed from the street was public . . . Of course, the cop told us that the three foot stretch would be too dangerous for people so our best bet would to be on the other side of the street. These locations were simply feeds into the main area and were not efficient for gaining large amounts of signatures."

And this is what the Toledo Blade reported today about the decision to close the park to the University of Toledo students who wanted to express concern about the Iraq War and supporters of Hitlerism. Sadly, they were prohibited.

By comparison, the land of the mouthbreathers has been pretty tame. People can complain about taxes, abortion (Cincinnati-based judges have been dismissing cases against abortion protesters) and, one supposes, even Nazis. Nobody in power seems to get their nose out of joint. Of course, they don't breath through their nostrils.

America's Nazis: Getting Active In Ohio?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Chatter has been growing that the American branch of the National Socialist movement -- the neo-Nazis who think Hitler was right and most of the world was wrong about him -- are headed for Ohio Monday. They passed out leaflets at the University of Cincinnati over the school's winter break, and it appears they may be planning a rally Monday on or near Fountain Square, which is the symbolic heart of the city.

City officials have tried to keep this hushed. But the ADL, a militant Jewish group, says it keeps track of the Nazis and reports that they will be in Cincinnati Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. This is what the ADL has been reporting to the entire world about the group's activities in Ohio.

Meanwhile, the Nazis aren't exactly shrinking violets about race hatred and their belief in white superiority, and seem to relish publicity whenever they can get it. There are apparently three National Socialist movement chapters in the state. They are open about their existence and can be found by searching the Nazi's Web site. One of the chapters is located in Cincinnati.

Here's an account of what happened in Toledo after the Nazis tried to rally in that city last year.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory had an off-the-record conversation with some of the city's editors and TV station honchos earlier this week to brief them about the Nazis possible appearance during the MLK holiday. Mallory was probably trying to pre-empt another slap at his city's reputation as a town where race relations are uneasy and sometimes explosive. But meeting with editors and local TV execs won't get it these days -- the 'net has made the world a wide open place. Didn't he know the ADL had the Nazi event marked?