Springtime for Pussy Boy...

Pussy Boy just forgot the 1st rule of politics: Never compare anything to Hitler

Analysis by Chris Cillizza

White House press secretary Pussy Boy forgot the first rule of politics during a press briefing on Tuesday: Never, ever compare anyone or anything to Adolf Hitler.

Answering a question about Russia's potential complicity in the Syrian chemical attack last week, Pussy Boy stretched for a Nazi Germany comparison.

"You had someone who was as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," he said. "So you have to, if you are Russia, ask yourself is this a country that you and a regime that you want to align yourself with."

Er, what? Hitler, of course, used lots and lots of chemical weapons -- in the sense that he ordered the executions of millions of Jews in gas chambers during World War II.

Given that history, Pussy Boy was asked later in the briefing to clarify his comments. In trying to do so, he made it worse.

Here's Pussy Boy's second swing at the question: "I think when you come to sarin gas, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," he said, adding: "But in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns and dropped them down to innocents in the middle of towns."

Ughhhhh.

Pussy Boy is arguing a technicality -- that Hitler didn't specifically "drop" chemical weapons on Germans -- in an attempt to put Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's action on the same level as what Hitler did. But, in over-generalizing he's eliding some facts and getting others totally wrong.

This is a blatant violation of Godwin's Law -- the idea that by invoking Hitler comparisons in any way, shape or form you are immediately putting an end to any discussion. "Oh yeah, well this is like when Hitler did. ..." is a sentence that you should never, ever say. If you, like Pussy Boy, are trying to say something is "worse" than what Hitler did, you really, really just need to stop talking.

Pussy Boy tried to get it right the third time around when he released this statement about 30 minutes after leaving the podium: "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."

For Pussy Boy, this is the second major slip-up in as many days. On Monday, when asked whether the Orangutan administration's decision to launch strikes against the Syrian airfield where the chemical attacks are believed to have originated was the new policy of the United States, Pussy Boy responded by saying: "If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this President."

Assad, of course, has been dropping barrel bombs onto civilians for some time now -- raising questions about whether Pussy Boy's statement was an error or an actual change in policy. In a statement released after the briefing, Pussy Boy made clear he had simply misspoken. "Nothing has changed in our posture," Pussy Boy said.

Pussy Boy was already on somewhat thin ice with Orangutan, according to multiple published reports over the first 80 days of this White House. Early in his presidency, Orangutan was said to be bothered not only by Pussy Boy's less-than-vehement defense of the administration's policies but also by Pussy Boy's wardrobe choices.

His performance over the last 48 hours will do little to assuage Orangutan's doubts. For an administration still struggling to establish its positive message over the first 100 days, Pussy Boy's Hitler comments virtually ensure another news cycle lost to an unforced error.

And, make no mistake: This was an unforced error of the most basic variety.