The Hitler references have to go. The Anti-Defamation League has had enough. So have the rest of us.

Last week, the ADL sent out a press release asking candidates and officials to stop using Nazi-related references as political metaphors.

"I have said this repeatedly, but it bears repeating again that inappropriate Holocaust analogies simply have no place in politics," said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director. "The Holocaust and Hitler should not be part of the discussion over which party is best equipped to lead this country for the next four years."

Foxman responded after the third Democratic official last week used a Nazi analogy to describe Republicans.

In that case, South Carolina state Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian made a passing reference to a basement briefing by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in which he said, "She was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun."

That followed California Democratic Chairman John Burton's comparison of GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's speech to the Republic National Convention to the big lie promoted by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Kansas Democratic Labor Committee chief Pat Lehman responded to Republican ads criticizing the Obama administration in this way:

"It's like Hitler said, if you're going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you," she told the Wichita Eagle newspaper.

Of course, she was just riffing on Florida Republican Rep. Allen West's comment that, "If Joseph Goebbels was around, he'd be very proud of the Democratic Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine."

Republican and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum compared President Obama's policies to those of Hitler.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage called the Internal Revenue Service "the new Gestapo," in a speech criticizing the Affordable Care Act.

The list goes on and on. The problem is that when people with microphones say these things others believe they have a right to spout these offensive comparisons themselves.

Sunday News Editor Marvin Adams, in a column from Dec. 18, 2011, noted that he received a letter in which the writer questioned a comment by President Obama about Congress in this manner:

"Doesn't that sound like something Chancellor Hitler said as he started on his path to becoming the nastiest dictator of all time?"

Adams' answer? No.

People reference Hitler and the Nazis in an attempt to demonize their opponents. Not only are those analogies ludicrous, they trivialize the millions of people who died at the hands of a demonic dictator whose "final solution" was the extermination of an entire race.

If politicians insist on invoking Hitler's name, they should do so solely in reference to historical events or when referring to genocides, such as those that occurred in Rwanda or Bosnia. Even then, they should parse their words carefully.

To do otherwise diminishes the Holocaust.