It goes without saying that Obama supporters do not condone the nastier genocidal bits of National Socialism, but the Big Lie, described by Hitler and perfected by Joseph Goebbels, is a familiar leftist tactic. It is described by its creators below: 

The broad masses of a nation...more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.  -- Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. -- Joseph Goebbels.

(In these quotes Hitler and Goebbels are accusing their enemies -- Jews and Englishmen -- of lying rather than advocating its use; the theory of the Big Lie is thus itself a big lie.)

A recent example of a Big Lie: in mid-May the New York Times published a story titled "G.O.P. 'Super PAC' Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama." To its credit, the New York Times mostly reported the facts that someone had leaked plans by a Romney PAC, led by Chicago businessman Joe Ricketts, "to use Mr. Wright's 'black liberation' rhetoric against the president" in an ad campaign. The only mention of racism in the story came from the Ricketts' group itself, who were prescient enough to plan for the "charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama's former ties to Mr. Wright."

At the time the main relevance of the story seemed to be that Romney was showing McCain-like deference to Obama, possibly a sign that the once again Republicans had nominated someone who wasn't willing to bring a gun to a knife fight. Romney's campaigning since has allayed most of these fears.

The story however has taken on a new life. Democrats seized on it as proof that, as everyone knew all along, Romney and his Republican Klansmen cronies are racists. It was a lie, a big lie, a colossal untruth, fabricated out of thin air. Obama's connection to Jeremiah Wright has never been fully examined, and it ought to be deeply troubling to all voters. Raising the issue has nothing to do with race or racism.

On the day after the Times story, James Carville sent an email through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

Yesterday, The New York Times exposed a massive Republican campaign full of race-baiting, fear-mongering, and outright lying against President Obama. It's disgusting, vile and a few other words I can't print. I'm itching to fight back, hard. Republicans have to learn that coded racism is out of bounds. Stand with us to show they can't get away with it. Tell the Republicans to stop - and take a stand against despicable race-baiting.

On May 31, the story reappeared (Goebbels: "keep repeating it") in a fundraising appeal from John Kerry:

That horrifying, race-baiting playbook The New York Times exposed? That's the canary in the coalmine. The very worst of the worst mudslinging is coming - fast, and the Senate races will all be hanging in the balance. Unlike in any year before, lies and smears will be bankrolled to reach further than ever before.

The original wildly overwrought charges of racism have solidified into an accepted truth, so much so that Kerry doesn't even have to explain the accusations, because everyone knows about the race-baiting exposed by the Times.

A typical summation of the story in the left-wing press ran in an editorial in Black Star News ("New York's Leading Investigative Newspaper"), titled "Panicky Candidate Sees Gutter Campaign as Path to White House?" (At first I thought it was a story about Obama, but it turns out that according to Black Star News, when Romney "condemns" something that is subsequently shut down, it's a synonym for "approves.")

Here's how Black Star sees the events:

Once again Mitt Romney has failed the presidential test.

When Romney was asked about a proposed multi-million dollars [sic] racist attack ad against Barack Obama by the owner of the Chicago Cubs and founder of TD Ameritrade Joe Ricketts, he walked away from reporters and claimed he hadn't yet read the newspapers so was unfamiliar with the topic. [...]

According to most Right Wing media: Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an alleged America-hater and even blamed the United States for the 9/11 attacks. So, since President Obama attended Wright's church for decades when he lived in Chicago, he too must therefore be an America-hater and he too must blame the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Realizing that there would be negative reaction to the clearly racist attacks, the campaign's organizers planned to hire an "extremely literate conservative African-American"[Larry Elder] who could argue publicly that President Obama tricked the nation by presenting himself as a "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

How racist can you get?

As an aspiring member of the Right Wing media, I'm following along just fine. Decades in Jeremiah Wright's church...Wright officiated at Obama's wedding...Wright baptized Obama's children...Obama took the title of his book from one of Wright's sermons...Wright says things like "Not God bless America but god DAMN America!" ("alleged America-hater") and "America's chickens are coming home to roost!" ("blamed the United States for the 9/11 attacks.") This doesn't necessary imply a linear connection to the President's views, but it certainly ought to raise questions.

Somebody help me out here. Where's the racism?

To this day, Wright's Trinity Church website enumerates a Kwanzaa-like "Black Values System" and describes its members as follows: "We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization." It encourages a "Disavowal of the Pursuit of 'Middleclassness'" because the white oppressor, or, "the captor," seeks to control "Africans" by the following methods:

• Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.
• Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.
• Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which, while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of "we" and "they" instead of "us."

These views cannot be described as anything other than fringe extremism. Jeremiah Wright preaches James M. Cone's black liberation theology, a radical racist ideology. The United States celebrates diverse populations with diverse views. Nobody's going to throw you in jail for being a black liberation theologist. But if the President of all the people ascribes to such fringe Afro-centric views, it's a problem. Shouting down questions like this with cries of "racism!" is mendacious propaganda not worthy of the dialogue that ought to thrive in a vibrant democracy. Big mendacious.