Executive Director Of Anne Frank Center Calls For Spicer To Be Fired For Saying That Hitler Didn't Use Chemical Weapons
Damn this is idiotic.
Clearly Spicer was saying, roughly, that the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons in the field. To suggest that this is some horrible thing that warrants firing Spicer is just stupid as hell. I, personally, would say that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons. I'd never think of including Zyklon B as a weapon in the ordinary sense. It's a bit like saying that the agents used in lethal injections are "chemical weapons." There's just a kind of ambiguity in 'weapon' afoot--and Spicer's usage is, I'd say, more standard / ordinary than Goldstein's. To insist that Spicer be fired for overlooking a peripheral ambiguity--especially when it is entirely obvious what he meant--is intellectually dishonest.
It's pretty hard to make the Trump folks look reasonable...but the hysterical anti-Trump squad is giving it a run for its money.
Maybe Spicer should out-outrage the outraged by upping the dumb ante...he could pretend to be shocked that anyone would dignify poison used for mass murder by calling it a weapon. Oh I suppose Mr. Goldstein thinks that the Kool-Aid used by the People's Temple was a weapon! Well I, for one, do not consider slaughter to be on par with combat...this is tantamount to saying that our brave men and women in uniform are the equivalent of cultists! Have you no decency, sir???
Or how about this: all explosives are chemical weapons! Spicer is denying that the Nazis used any explosives! Nazi apologist!!! Blitz denier!!!
Clearly Spicer was saying, roughly, that the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons in the field. To suggest that this is some horrible thing that warrants firing Spicer is just stupid as hell. I, personally, would say that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons. I'd never think of including Zyklon B as a weapon in the ordinary sense. It's a bit like saying that the agents used in lethal injections are "chemical weapons." There's just a kind of ambiguity in 'weapon' afoot--and Spicer's usage is, I'd say, more standard / ordinary than Goldstein's. To insist that Spicer be fired for overlooking a peripheral ambiguity--especially when it is entirely obvious what he meant--is intellectually dishonest.
It's pretty hard to make the Trump folks look reasonable...but the hysterical anti-Trump squad is giving it a run for its money.
Maybe Spicer should out-outrage the outraged by upping the dumb ante...he could pretend to be shocked that anyone would dignify poison used for mass murder by calling it a weapon. Oh I suppose Mr. Goldstein thinks that the Kool-Aid used by the People's Temple was a weapon! Well I, for one, do not consider slaughter to be on par with combat...this is tantamount to saying that our brave men and women in uniform are the equivalent of cultists! Have you no decency, sir???
Or how about this: all explosives are chemical weapons! Spicer is denying that the Nazis used any explosives! Nazi apologist!!! Blitz denier!!!
posted by Winston Smith at
5:10 PM
4 Comments:
I don't get it as a qualification though. I don't see how this makes Assad lower than Hitler, as Spicer seemed to be saying.
Hitler's technique was a whole lot more efficient, and thorough.
I didn't think it was *supposed* to make Assad worst than Hitler, was it? Just worse than Hitler in this particular respect. Like if you said "even Hitler didn't kick dogs," you wouldn't so much mean *dog-kickers are worse than Hitler* as *with respect to kicking dogs they're worse than Hitler.*
That's the way I'd take it, anyway, rightly or wrongly.
So he's saying chemical weapons are unthinkable? But the Allies thought about using them, pretty seriously, going as far as shipping mustard gas from the US to Britain. And the Japanese did use gas against China.
Spicer's trouble is he lost all credibility early, defending Trump on some of his more preposterous lies. He's a punch line.
I think it was supposed to make Assad worse than Hitler, I honestly do, so whatever Trump does in retaliation is justified. Whether Spicer thought enough about it to mean "in just this instance" or "worse in all ways", my loathing of Spicer and Trump have me leaning towards the latter.
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