Gov. Pat Quinn, D-Ill., often described as asleep at the wheel, must have been comatose when he allowed staffers to tweet support for an article comparing black Republicans to Nazi lackeys, and invoking despicable Holocaust imagery.

Aides to the governor running for reelection tweeted to Democratic supporters several times, to read a Chicago Sun Times column written by Neil Steinberg, the Free Beacon reported.

The article included this quote: “As a general rule, individuals will sell out the interests of their groups in return for personal benefit. It isn’t just a black thing. Jews collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, helping them to round up their own people in the hopes they’d be the last to go.”

Steinberg – who can expect a severe tongue-lashing from his rabbi – went on to castigate black newspaper publisher Hermene Hartman  and black ministers “with roofs to repair” as being tools of Republican gubernatorial challenger Bruce Rauner.

Reaction to the insults was swift and vituperative.

Republican National Committee spokesman Raffi Williams advised Quinn to grow up.

“Quinn, like all 2014 Democrats, has nothing but failed policies to run on,” Williams said in a written response.”Knowing he cannot possibly win an election by debating his record, he is resorting to same tactics my four-year old nephew does when he is losing an argument – he kicks, screams and calls people names. It is beyond time for Democrats to stop behaving like children and start working with Republicans on job creation, school choice, and energy independence.”

“Coming during Passover just a few days after the [anti-Semitic] shootings in Kansas, this kind of rhetoric was beyond outrageous,” said an anonymous Jewish community leader. Rabbis and other prominent Jewish leaders immediately contacted Quinn’s office and demanded a retraction of the supportive tweets, which eventually occurred.

Quinn’s staff also tweeted another quote from the frenetic Steinberg’s column reading, “If Rauner is willing to throw his own money away like this, what’s he going to do when he gets his hands on ours?”

That too was eventually deleted, but the somnolent governor has yet to issue an apology to the offended communities or admitted to having sent the tweets.

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Richard Berkow

Former political news reporter Richard Berkow lost his idealism in the Kennedy years, and his innocence in Vietnam, Lebanon, and the Soviet Union. He hasn’t mellowed since, and can be harassed at [email protected]

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