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Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas said this on the campaign trail a couple of days ago:

There’s a palpable fear among Kansans all across this state that the America that we love and cherish and honor will not be the same America for our kids and grandkids….We have to change course because our country is heading for national socialism.

What do you think? Should we treat this charitably and assume Roberts is too dim to realize that national socialism is Nazism? I guess so. According to a piece today from WaPo’s Philip Rucker, Roberts explains that (a) President Obama is leading the country in the direction of a “European socialistic state,” and (b) “You can’t tell me anything that he has not tried to nationalize.” So there you have it.

Aside from the fact that Obama hasn’t tried to nationalize so much as a coal mine, which suggests Roberts doesn’t know what that word means either, I’m pretty sure no one in history has put those two terms together and called it “national socialism” unless they’re explicitly talking about the Third Reich. But there’s a first time for everything. So congratulations, Senator Roberts! I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you managed to violate Godwin’s law through stupidity, not malice. Not everyone can claim that.