ACTUALLY, HE PROBABLY DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE MEANT, EITHER. Jim Robbins at The Corner:

With respect to the Nazis, Hannah Arendt noted that they were as frank as they were mendacious -- that no-one should have been surprised by the Holocaust because the Nazis had been talking about such things for years. Western liberals dismissed it all as rhetorical. The same was said about the things the radical Islamists have been writing about for decades. (emphasis added)

"Western liberals dismissed it all as rehetorical"? Who's he talking about? Harry Hopkins? Lillian Hellman?