POLITICS: Obama-Hitler Billboard Covered

The Iowa Tea Party group that plastered Obama's picture next to images of Hitler and Lenin on a billboard has papered over the ad. "The sign is now covered out of respect for other Tea Party people,” a rep tells the Globe Gazette. "The national Tea Party people are right, it is a distraction from the message the Tea Party is trying to get out.” He says the group plans to put up a "blander" ad in its place.

Most felt the billboard was more than off-message. The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors called the sign "grotesquely offensive." "We ask that political groups do not trivialize our suffering in the future by making false analogies with Hitler's horrendous crimes," the group said in a statement. The Mason City Chamber of Commerce says it received dozens of calls from people who changed their minds about visiting or doing business in the city after learning of the billboard.