By
Hayley Hoefer | Associate Editor for Opinion
April 11, 2017, at 5:15 p.m.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, expressing condemnation of Syria's Bashar Assad, said
Tuesday that Adolf Hitler "didn't even sink to using chemical weapons"
during World War II. Contrary to Spicer's claim, Hitler and members of
his Nazi Party used gas to carry out the mass extermination of Jews,
among others, in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
After a reporter asked Spicer to clarify his
remark, he responded, "I think when you come to sarin gas, he was not
using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing."
Spicer continued,
"I understand your point. Thank you. I appreciate that. He brought them
into the Holocaust centers, I understand that. I was saying in the way
that Assad used them where he went into town, dropped them into the
middle of town. I appreciate the clarification. That was not the
intent."
Spicer was attempting to explain President Donald Trump's decision to order missile strikes
in response to Assad's use of chemical weapons against Syrian
civilians, but his historical bungle became the major topic of
discussion from the briefing. After Tuesday's press conference, which
came during Holy Week, Spicer issued a statement saying, "In no way was I
trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying
to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical
weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is
reprehensible and inexcusable."
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Notably, the Trump administration received criticism in January for its Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, which Spicer defended, and for not doing enough to combat the recent wave of anti-Semitism in America. Putting Spicer's most recent comments in this broader context, Callum Borchers of The Washington Post, writes,
"Minimizing Hitler's actions – even a little – represents a glaring
gaffe by a White House that the press previously has scrutinized for
being slow to address bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and
for failing to mention Jews, specifically, in a statement on Holocaust
Remembrance Day."
Zack Beauchamp at Vox doesn't think
that Spicer's follow-up statement to the press acknowledged the full
implications of his original suggestion, either. He asserts, "The thrust
of his initial point, which has not been withdrawn, is that Assad
crossed some kind of moral line that Hitler did not. Saying that Hitler
'didn't sink to the level' of Assad is a form of whitewashing Hitler's
crimes against the Jews."
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The Atlantic's David A. Graham observes,
"There's no good time to make a Hitler comparison, but deploying one in
the midst of Passover to justify voluntary airstrikes is an especially
unwise choice, as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer realized, to
his chagrin, Tuesday afternoon." He finds that Spicer's bungle shows the
problems of his style of engaging with the press. Indeed, Graham
remarks that Trump's press secretary and other White House members have a
tendency to be "sloppy in their messaging" – a habit he argues is
particularly troubling when it comes to conveying foreign policy.
Hot Air's Allahpundit says,
"The error here is an excess of zeal in trying to demonize Assad, who
really is demonic, by reaching for the worst benchmark he can come up
with without thinking through the analogy." He notes that Spicer was
trying to lend credence to Trump's approach to dealing with Syria but
botched his job. "Exit lesson: If you're a PR person in any capacity,
stay away from Hitler analogies, for cripes sake," concludes
Allahpundit.
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