Here's Gore Vidal interviewed in LA Weekly:

"The USA PATRIOT Act is as despotic as anything Hitler came up with — even using much of the same language. In one of my earlier books, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, I show how the language used by the Clinton people to frighten Americans into going after terrorists like Timothy McVeigh — how their rights were going to be suspended only for a brief time — was precisely the language used by Hitler after the Reichstag fire."

I'm not a big fan of the USA PATRIOT Act, but "as despotic as anything Hitler came up with"? Anything? Remember, Hitler came up with lots of things.

Also, what exactly did Hitler say after the Reichstag fire. According to one witness, Hitler shouted:

"There will be no mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down. The German people will not tolerate leniency. The communist deputies must be hanged this very night. Everybody in league with them must be arrested. There will no longer be any leniency for Social Democrats either."

Say what you will about the Bush administration, but these facile comparisons to the Nazis only trivialize the true horrors of that regime.