The Washington Post blog has put up an article reporting, that Hillary Clinton says Putin’s actions are like ‘what Hitler did back in the ’30s’, which may look worse than it actually is. Speaking at a closed-press luncheon fundraiser for he Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, our former secretary of state compared Russian President Vladimir's Putin's remarks about the Ukraine to those of Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War II.
"Now if this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s," Clinton said Tuesday, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram. "All the Germans that were ... the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they're not being treated right. I must go and protect my people, and that's what's gotten everybody so nervous." ...
Even though the event was closed to the press, Harry Saltttzgaver, an executive editor of the Gazette in Long Beach was there as a guest. He reports:
"She compared issuing Russian passports to Ukrainians with ties to Russia with early actions by Nazi Germany before Hitler began invading neighboring countries," Saltzgaver told BuzzFeed. "She said, however, that while that makes people nervous, there is no indication that Putin is as irrational as the instigator of World War II."
Saltzgaver later told The Washington Post that he did not intend to "start a firestorm" with his description of Clinton's speech. A Clinton spokesman did not reply to a request to provide a recording or transcript of her remarks or to elaborate on them or offer additional context.
CNN reported about an hour ago that former Secretary Clinton has issued a clarification of her remarks, but I missed the details. This seems to me to be a fairly innocent set of remarks, that although historically accurate, and well intentioned, she probably wishes she could take back. In previous speeches she has noted:
"So it's a real nail-biter, right now, but nobody wants to up the rhetoric. Everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution, and that's what we should be trying to do."
I believe it is Godwin's Law that predicts that it is only a matter of time, in any protracted dispute, before someone brings up a comparison. It usually does not work out well, but I don't think this incident will blow-up to anything significant, unless those on the right try to make political hay out of it. (Don't we have a gentleman's agreement with the GOP not to use remarks made at closed-press fundraiser's for political purposes?) They will not get far, I think.
My guess is that when President Putin raised accusations that the Ukraine was being overrun by neo-Nazi's as one of his justifications for invading Crimea, she though, "He's the last one that ought to be bringing up comparisons to the Nazi's. Then later with jet lag, or some distraction, went off on a tangent. This seems harmless to me.
3:38 PM PT: I looked up Godwin's Law in Wikipedia and it is a slightly different than I reported. Wikipedia - Godwin's Law
Godwin's Law (or Rule) of Nazi Analogies[1][2] ("As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1")[2][3] is an Internet adage promulgated by American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990.[2] It asserts, in other words, that if an online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler, Nazis or Nazism.
5:02 PM PT:Thanks to RJDoctor for bringing us this link: Hillary Clinton at UCLA: Putin is a 'tough guy with a thin skin'
Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that she was merely comparing the tactics used by Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin — and not equating the men themselves — when she drew a parallel between Hitler’s efforts to resettle Germans in the late 1930s to Putin’s recent moves to issue Russian passports to citizens in Ukraine with ties to Russia.
"Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the '30s," Clinton said, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram. "The Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying, 'They’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people' — and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous."
In an address at UCLA on Wednesday, Clinton reiterated that she was not putting Putin in the category of Hitler, just noting that claims by Putin and other Russian leaders that they needed to go into Crimea to protect Russian minorities were "reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities" in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
"So I just want everybody to have a little bit more perspective," Clinton said. "I’m not making a comparison certainly, but I am recommending that we can perhaps learn from this tactic that has been used before."
Also Jim Riggs and Dartigan shared the interesting perspective that his might help Clinton by making her appear tough, macho, and willing to stand up to a thug.
5:19 PM PT: Please check out this Christie post from earlier this afternoon. It contain two hot articles the second of which, from the NYT, may spell the end of David Samson
5:24 PM PT: Please check out this Christie post from earlier this afternoon. The second article, from the NYT, could spell the end of David Samson.
NJ Spotlight reveals Hoboken was shortchanged $700,000 in Sandy funds using NJ's own criteria