Mountain View, CA – California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown has told a Jewish-rights group that he regrets recent remarks to a reporter in which he compared his rival’s campaign tactics to Joseph Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Brown’s comments, quoted last week on KCBS radio reporter Doug Sovern’s blog, sparked criticism from Meg Whitman’s campaign and the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a statement Monday saying the comments were inappropriate and offensive.
“I’m sorry, I talked to the people at the Holocaust center and they completely understand,” Brown said Tuesday in response to a reporter’s question about the comments. The group he was referring to was the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, his spokesman said.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, confirmed that Brown had called him the morning the blog appeared and they spoke for about 5 minutes. He said Brown, who he has known for 30 years, told him he regretted referencing Goebbels.
“He said that his remarks were taken out of context. He was complaining about, in his opinion, the constant blitz of attack ads that were coming from the other side,” Hier said.
Sovern reported that he bumped into Brown while the candidate was jogging in the Oakland Hills.
Sovern said Brown told him he was concerned about Whitman’s ability to spend an almost unlimited amount of money in the governor’s race. Whitman, the billionaire former eBay CEO, has given her campaign $81 million so far and plans to spend at least $150 million through November.
According to the blog, Brown said Whitman has the money to launch a pervasive smear campaign: “She’ll have people believing whatever she wants about me.”
Brown then compared that type of messaging ability to Goebbels.
“Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world,” Brown was quoted as saying.
Asked Tuesday if he regretted the remarks, Brown said: “I’ll tell you this, jogging in the hills with sweaty strangers will no longer result in conversations. Mums the word.”
Hier said Brown admitted he should not have used Goebbels’ name.
“He regrets any misapprehension that was created by his remarks,” Hier said. “He said he was jogging and he shouldn’t have used it. He certainly wasn’t saying Meg Whitman was Joseph Goebbels.”
Hier said he was happy Brown had called. Earlier that morning, Hier had spoken out against the remarks during a Los Angeles radio interview.
“He said he regrets it and I take him at his word,” Hier said.
Nina Grotch, the interim regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco, said such remarks diminish the Holocaust and take away from it being a unique historic atrocity.
She said she’s unaware if Brown has contacted her organization, which has branches in several cities, but was happy to hear he had at least reached out to another Jewish organization.
“Jerry Brown is an educated and smart man and I’m sure he knows these kinds of comparisons are inappropriate,” she said. “It’s always nice, however, to do a more public apology so people understand that he did take this seriously and understands it is potentially deeply offensive.”
everyone has to stop being so Holocaust-sensitive. there was nothing wrong with what he said. he did not compare her to Goebbels. he simply said that something that she was doing was comparable. there are greater threats- morons questioning the historical authenticity of the Holocaust. if we attack every little thing, history will question the Holocaust because everyone will know that a bunch of vigilantes treated the Holocaust as a religion and pounced on anyone that said its name in vain. they will say that the atmosphere was oppressive and therefore it is hard to verify how authentic each fact was. the Holocaust is too important an event for us to take that chance.
Why shouldn’t Brown make Nazi comparisons, if people from Wlliamsburgh, Monroe, and their followers in Yerusholayim compare the Israeli soldiers to the gestapo and hitler YM”S.
You may disagree and use the very strongest terms and language against Israel.They should not be immune to the worst of criticism. But never ever compare anyone or anything to Eichman and hitler etc. (except for people like Irans tyrant. But then again if you go there kissing them then…)
like he wouldn’t spend the money if he had it.he was a terrible lefty gov the first time when he had hair.
Enough already with this hyper-sensitivity to any analogy to the Nazis. Obviously, the shoah was a unique tragedy but after 60 years and new generations of political leaders who do not connect directly with the WWII era, such comparions will become more prevalent and we might as well get used to it. Those who use such comparisons do NOT mean to lessen the impact of the Shoah by using it to highlight the particular issue or concern.
brown is the ultimate liberal, i like him to stay out of politics all together
Brown’s comments were out of bounds, but he quickly retracted and apologized. That should be that. In four years as CA Secretary of State, eight years as CA Governor, eight years as mayor of Oakland, and almost four years as CA Attorney General he has done nothing to indicate that he has anti-Semitic leanings.
The points regarding Jews comparing other Jews to Nazis are well taken. Those comments have NOT been retracted. Shame!