Dick Durbin, the Democrat senator from Illinois who likely will be running for his fifth term in the 2020 election, has a couple of lessons for freshman Democrat House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when it comes to analogizing the treatment of detainees at United States detention facilities with the concentration camps of the Nazis.

As Jack Heller pointed out to me in an email, Durbin compared the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo to the Nazis — and for extra points, included the Soviet gulags and the murderous Pol Pot regime:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings."

Jack makes the point:

Maybe AOC realizes that fourteen years later Durbin is still the second ranking Democrat in the Senate and she has come to believe that reprehensible stupidity as they mislead the public is the way for Democrats to move up. She certainly understands that most of the media will support Democrats no matter what they say or do.

But Durbin attained his next 14 years in office as a senator after apologizing for his outrageous slander.  Via CNN:

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat apologized Tuesday for remarks comparing the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to methods used by the Nazis, Soviets and other repressive regimes.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said he "never intended any disrespect" to U.S. troops with his June 14 comments, for which the minority whip has endured a week of criticism from Republicans and some Democrats.

"In the end, I don't want anything in my public career to detract from my love for this country, my respect for those who serve it, and this great Senate," Durbin said in an emotional statement on the Senate floor.

"I offer my apologies to those that were offended by my words."

I don't believe I have ever in my life offered something Dick Durbin did as an example to others.  But Ocasio-Cortez would do well to consider the example of her party colleague who has enjoyed 23 years in Congress and counting.

She won't, of course, because Ocasio-Cortez appears to believe she is always "morally right," no matter what the actual facts are.

“There's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right,” @AOC says in response to criticism that she’s made factual errors. https://t.co/sKf3sHl9F6 pic.twitter.com/xKc2eB7GEk

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 7, 2019

For all his faults — and they are legion — Senator Durbin is not a megalomaniac.  The most Ocasio-Cortez can allow is that when she is mistaken, she does not apologize, but rather will restate her point:

Image credits: Twitter video screen grabs.