Debra Orin writes that Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has an advanced case of BDS--and it's getting the better of him:

REP. Charles Rangel has scored plenty of headlines in his 35 years in Congress, but lately, he's outdone himself by comparing President Bush to the revolting Southern racist "Bull" Connor, who sicced attack dogs on black protesters in 1963.

"George Bush is our 'Bull' Connor," claimed the Harlem Democrat — New York's most senior member of Congress — as he charged that the Hurricane Katrina response was slow because many victims were black.

But that's not all.

Rangel raised eyebrows by saying the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein was as bad as the Holocaust — "This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed" by the Nazis, he said in June.

That's not the first time that Rangel invoked the Reich Stuff of course. As Jonah Goldberg once wrote:

Tax cuts are not genocide, as so many Democrats have suggested over the years. (For example, during the Contract with America debate, Charles Rangel complained that "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things" that were in the Contract with America. In other words, the Contract with America was in some way worse than what Hitler did. At the end of the day, that is Holocaust denial.)

Back to Debra Orin:

In July, Rangel got into a flap after the official Congressional Record ran a statement under his name blaming a fictitious 1712 slave-owner, "Willie Lynch," for tactics that destroyed the black family. Rangel denied saying it.

Then the Washington Times found the Congressional Record with the Rangel "Lynch" statement — based on Internet fake documents.

Rangel aide Emil Milne said an intern wrote it and it somehow got into the Record without Rangel knowing.

Last month, Rangel turned medical expert and told New York 1 that Vice President Dick Cheney is too sick to do his job: "He's got heart disease, but the disease is not restricted to that part of his body. He grunts a lot, so you never really know what he's thinking."

What's up?

Rangel didn't return calls. But aides say he's just being himself. They note that in February, he called fellow Democrat Bill Clinton a "redneck." (He insisted that was a compliment, and it's hardly a "Bull" Connor-type insult.)

Republicans claim Rangel, 75, sounds irascible and frustrated because he's been waiting 11 years and now knows he'll never chair the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, since Democrats are unlikely to regain a House majority any time soon.

"Most of us are not too upset with the fact that Charlie has chosen this approach, because it exemplifies that case that we've been making that Democrats are devoid of ideas and non-constructive and hateful," said a New York Republican in Congress.

As Mark Steyn said yesterday that many Democrats are "not great issues people, and they make the mistake of, as they say in English soccer, playing the man, not the ball".

Rangel seems to be personifying this approach.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

Update: Orrin Judd has some further thoughts on BDS, and another example of a sufferer, and concludes, "Bush Derangement Syndrome stems in large part from the sufferer's conviction that he lives in extraordinary times--i.e. the moment that fascism finally descends on the United States":

The personal hatred that folks harbor towards President Bush blinds them to the entirely orthodox nature of his politics. This is not healthy for them for reasons that are readily apparent. However, if we continue with the logic of such folk the third volume in their trilogy is likely to hold that since the elections of Republicans are illegitimate and governance by Republicans is illegitimate then the laws they pass and the republic itself are illegitimate.

Isn't that implicit when folks like activist/actress (and now Air America talk radio personality) Janeane Garofalo call President Bush's tenure "the 43rd Reich", as she did, while guest-hosting the left seat on CNN's Crossfire in 2003?