Just as there are few people who actually deserve to be compared to Adolf Hilter, there are very few things that warrant comparison to 9/11. For example, there are literally zero parallels between a law providing health care to millions of people and the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. Nevertheless, Congressman Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, decided that 9/11 was an apt comparison to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare yesterday. While obviously moronic and outrageous, Pence’s 9/11 comparison is hardly the only over-the-top 9/11 comparison we’ve ever heard. Here are thirteen others.
- Canadian TV hockey analyst Ron MacLean “opened his segment … by comparing hockey players from the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers to 9/11 first responders.”
- Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong “said Tuesday’s pancake house rampage, which killed three National Guardsmen and an elderly woman was ‘not unlike 9/11.’”
- Gary Bauer, president of the right-wing group American Values, “equated the importance of turning out in November to defeating the 9/11 hijackers.”
- Conservative radio host Neal Boortz declared that “Barack Obama is a bigger disaster to this country than 9-11.”
- Fat Joe suggested that the breakup of Mobb Deep was like a “9/11 in hip-hop.”
- Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell tried to motivate the Philadelphia Eagles thusly: “Somebody’s got to make a big hit. And then turn to everybody else and say, ‘Come on!’ When you’re taking a hill, someone looks back and says, ‘Let’s go.’ On Flight93, that guy said — it will live in immortality — ‘Let’s roll.’ Somebody’s got to say that.”
- CNBC analyst Rick Santelli “compared the budget crises affecting state and federal balance sheets to a Sept. 11-type attack on the nation.”
- Cardinal Francis Arinze, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, “compared abortion, euthanasia and genetic experiments to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, saying Tuesday they all showed contempt for life.”
- Alec Baldwin suggested that “what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City.”
- Cincinnati Reds G.M. Jim Bowden said, “If players want to strike, they ought to just pick Sept. 11, because that’s what it’s going to do to the game.”
- Rapper Lil’ Kim told jurors “that being in the middle of a wild shootout four years ago was as difficult for her as the Sept. 11 terror attack.”
- Rick Santorum claimed that the debate over gay marriage was “an issue just like 9-11.”
- Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino claimed that the day Obamacare was passed “will be remembered just as 9-11 was remembered in history.”