The name calling gets ugly

East Rockaway Village Pride Party President Ed Zangrillo is calling on Deputy Mayor Dr. Richard Meagher, the Freedom Party’s mayoral candidate in the March election, to apologize to his opponent, Village Pride Party candidate Francis Lenahan, and the voters of East Rockaway for what Zangrillo said is a comparison of Lenahan to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, that Meagher used in a campaign flier, and is demanding that Meagher take himself off the ballot and resign as deputy mayor.

“It’s disgusting,” said Zangrillo. “Richard Meagher has swooped to a new low in gutter politics. To compare your opponent to two of history’s worst genocidal maniacs stretches the boundary of what is acceptable in even the most heated political campaign.”

In a letter addressed to the Herald, Zangrillo wrote that Meagher and the Freedom Party have “managed to redefine the boundaries of poor taste,” and called a three-page mailing sent out by the party “vile trash.”

“Comparing a decent, honorable man to the greatest evil our world has ever known goes beyond self-serving political rhetoric,” Zangrillo wrote.

Freedom Party President Bill Kienke said that the Village Pride Party’s tactics, not its candidates, were referred to as “The Big Lie” in the mailing.

“They have deliberately taken the quote out of context to create an issue,” Kienke said. “They have distorted and lied about everything they have been putting out for the last six months. Nowhere did we compare Lenahan to a Nazi. [They] have deliberately taken this out of context in a feeble attempt to deflect attention away from [their] weak candidates, inflame members and cover up [their] inability to present to our citizens a valid campaign platform. “

“The Big Lie” is a phrase first attributed to Hitler in his 1925 book “Mein Kampf.” He wrote of “a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Goebbels used the phrase 16 years later, and it has appeared in pop culture books and movies ever since — most notably in George Orwell’s “1984.”