posted May 20, 2005 01:34 PM              

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Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., angered some Democrats with his comments on the Senate floor.

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WASHINGTON (May 19) - A top Republican likened Democrats to Adolf Hitler Thursday as the U.S. Senate moved toward taking away the minority's power to block President Bush's judicial nominees.

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania mocked Democrats for accusing Republicans of ''trying to break the rules'' in order to ban procedural roadblocks known as filibusters against candidates for the federal bench.

Santorum said Democrats had broken Senate tradition of permitting votes on judicial nominees with majority support by blocking 10 of those offered by Bush in the last Congress.

''The audacity of some members to stand up and say, 'How dare you break this rule,''' Santorum, a member of the Republican leadership, said in a Senate speech.

''It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 (during World War II),'' declaring, '''I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It's mine,''' Santorum said.

Santorum was among those who criticized Sen. Robert Byrd earlier this year after the West Virginia Democrat made a reference to Hitler's Nazi Germany when he blasted plans by Republicans to ban the judicial filibuster.

Byrd said Hitler had turned the law inside out to make the unlawful legal.

The debate has been marked by particularly caustic language. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, opened it on Wednesday by accusing Democrats of using obstructionist tactics to ''kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees.''

A Frist aide later said the senator was referring to character assassinations by Democrats, who have denounced nominees as ''right-wing extremists'' and ''Neanderthals.''

At a rally on the steps of Congress, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, lobbed another insult, alluding to the opening of a new Star Wars movie when he said: ''When Americans think of a scary person in a black robe, they should be thinking of Darth Vader, not Republicans' choices for judges.''

Reut20:31 05-19-05

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''It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 (during World War II),'' declaring, '''I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It's mine,''' Santorum said.

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You would think with that quote, that he's an Iraqi Or Afghani.