Hillary Clinton's comparision of President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler raises eyebrows

[ProSense]

Hillary Clinton's comparision of President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler raises eyebrows

by HoundDog

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.

<...>

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."

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/05/1282443/-Hillary-Clinton-s-comparision-of-President-Vladimir-Putin-to-Adolf-Hitler-raises-eyebrows

[RKP5637]

1. Putin lusts for power and control. His body language is very revealing, it's written

all over him.

[Ikonoklast]

2. I hate to agree with her, but some of what she said rings true.

Putin used the same bullshit excuse to invade before, in Georgia.


Make wild accusations that the foreign state is oppressing and killing ethnic Russians, invade in order to 'protect' them.

Sudetenland 101.

[REP]

4. Same here; was saying some of the same things last week

Paternal family escaped pogroms in Russia in 1917 so not super trusting of any of their governments.

[Ikonoklast]

6. I worked with a guy, son of a Russian Jewish emigre who had escaped to this country

around the same time.


Gil would always say, "Never own anything you couldn't jump over a fence with."

I asked him one day what he meant by that. Gil said his father told him that when the Cossacks would come, you, your family, and the entire village would have to run for their lives leaving all of their worldly possessions behind.

After it happens a few times, you learn not to keep or buy anything of value that wasn't portable and easily used as money.

Gil said that his father told him they would convert anything of value into gold and sew it into the hem of their coats, they would always have to grab their coats anyway if they had to run, and what little gold they had would at least keep them from starving while on the run.




I wouldn't trust any country that had a deep-set history of violence and repression against my people, either.

[REP]

7. The other countries my father's family is from were all occupied by Nazis

I can't do much genealogy on that side of the family because most of the towns and shtetls are just gone.

So yeah. Not so shocked by what Clinton said.

[hrmjustin]

3. Putin is evil!

[Deep13]

5. As a superficial comparison, it is not far fetched.

Granted only Hitler is Hitler and only Putin is Putin. Contingencies are always different in every circumstance and events at one time and place are never directly analogous to other times and places.

[moondust]

9. Other superficial comparisons:

United States invasion of Panama

Invasion of Grenada

[magical thyme]

8. but were they throwing premies out of incubators? Or something like that? nt

[pipoman]

10. When will public figures finally get that saying the word

Hitler, unless talking about WW2, is just asking for a shit storm?

[Whisp]

11. yet another clumsy moment for Hillary. n/t

[idendoit]

12. This is as funny as the Serbia flyover fiasco and doing shots.

She still wears the presumptive crown, though.