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Russian President Vladimir Putin is wasting his country's potential, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
The former secretary of state’s provocative comparison drew swift rebukes Wednesday from U.S.-Russia policy experts — including some who served under her husband, former president Bill Clinton — while attracting rare notes of support from hawkish Republicans in Congress.
(Brittany Murray/Press Telegram) - Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton enters the courtyard at the Union Bank Building where
she spoke at the annual Boys and Girls Club fundraiser luncheon in Long
Beach, Calif., on March 4, 2014.
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After invoking Hitler at a private fundraiser Tuesday, Clinton largely stood by the remarks on Wednesday. She said she was merely noting parallels between Putin’s claim that he was protecting Russian-speaking minorities in Crimea and Hitler’s moves into Poland, Czechoslovakia and other parts of Europe to protect German minorities.
“I just want people to have a little historic perspective,” Clinton said during a question-and-answer session at UCLA. “I’m not making a comparison certainly, but I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before.”
Clinton added that Putin’s goal is “to re-Sovietize Russia’s periphery” and said he is “a tough guy with a thin skin” — something she said she knows from personal dealings with him.
In Obama’s first term, Clinton was the face of the administration’s effort to “reset” its policy with Russia and cultivated relations with then-President Dmitry Medvedev. Some Republican critics and foreign policy experts suggested Wednesday that Clinton’s rhetoric about Putin represented a political calculation to cast herself as tough on Russia in advance of a possible 2016 campaign.
Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a nonpartisan global risk consulting firm, said Clinton’s Hitler comment signaled she was trying to “stage manage” the Russia issue.
“Hillary’s too smart to actually believe that Putin’s actions are remotely close to anything that Hitler did,” Bremmer said. “The only reason she would say that is that she believes she was vulnerable in having been the architect of the failed ‘reset’ and wants to show that she’s harder-line than anybody else.”
Michael McFaul, who served with Clinton as Obama’s ambassador to Russia, said that critique was off-base. He said Clinton was “much more skeptical” of Putin than other administration colleagues, that she was the first U.S. official to condemn Putin’s disputed 2011 election, and that she made a point of meeting with civil-society critics during official visits to Russia.
“She was always very tough-minded about the Russian government — no romanticism with respect to the regime there,” McFaul said. “It wasn’t like she was ideologically opposed to somehow working with the Russian government when we could, but she had no illusions that it was going to develop into something grand, unlike maybe some others.”
Clinton’s aides offered no explanation for why she chose to invoke Hitler on Tuesday, when she addressed the crisis in Ukraine for the first time at a private fundraiser in Long Beach, Calif.
The brouhaha illustrates Clinton’s delicate political position after leaving the State Department. She is out of office and weighing a possible 2016 campaign during which she would be compelled to chart a new course for the country, yet she remains loyal to Obama and tied to his foreign policies.
Her predicament was crystallized when she made her remarks at the California fundraiser, saying that Putin’s move to provide Russian passports to people with Russian connections living elsewhere is reminiscent of Hitler’s aggressive protection of ethnic Germans across Europe.
“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” Clinton said, according to audio from the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “All the Germans that were — you know, the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry — who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, you know, 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.”
The Press-Telegram appears to have been the only news outlet present at Clinton’s speech at an otherwise closed-press luncheon attended by about 250 people to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.
Some foreign policy experts said her remarks risk worsening the diplomatic situation.
“A statement that equates Russians to Nazis and Mr. Putin to what Hitler was doing is simply going to inflame Russian opinion,” said James F. Collins, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Lawrence J. Korb, a former Reagan administration official and a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the situation“really complicates things” for Obama because it could make him appear weak by comparison.
“We have to be so careful of these historical analogies,” Korb said. “You keep drawing up these analogies, they hurt more than they can help. Whatever Putin is, he wasn’t like Hitler. He didn’t massacre thousands of non-Russians in Georgia or anything like that.”
With Putin’s invasion in Ukraine five years after the “reset” policy, Republicans see a vulnerability for Hillary Clinton. America Rising, the leading anti-Clinton super PAC, released a video Wednesday highlighting what it called “the spectacular failure of the Obama/Clinton Russia ‘Reset’ policy.”
“One of the most visible policies that she advocated for during her time as secretary of state has completely unraveled and is looking both naive and misguided right now,” said Tim Miller, the group’s executive director.
Correct the Record, a pro-Clinton group, rushed to her defense. “Secretary Clinton worked to advance America’s relations with Russia,” spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod said.
Among Clinton’s other defenders were Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), two of the more hawkish Republicans on Capitol Hill, who said they agreed with her comparison of Putin and Hitler.
Another defender, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), said: “What she’s saying is let’s be very clear-eyed about this. This is a way in which to maneuver your way into a country and take it over, as we see in the peninsula now controlled by Putin.”
P.J. Crowley, who served as Clinton’s top spokesman at the State Department, noted that there is a long tradition of U.S. leaders invoking Hitler comparisons. Secretary of State John F. Kerry last year likened Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to the Nazi leader. And President George H.W. Bush compared Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to Hitler.
“Hitler makes cameo appearances all the time within American political narratives about emerging international crises,” Crowley said. “He’s an easy and recognizable shorthand that signals danger.”
Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.
Hillary Clinton says Putin’s actions are like ‘what Hitler did back in the ’30s’
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton on
Tuesday compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression in
Ukraine to actions taken by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler outside Germany in
the run-up to World War II.
Making her first extensive comments about the crisis in Ukraine, Clinton said at a private fundraiser in California that Putin's campaign to provide Russian passports to those with Russian connections living outside his country's borders is reminiscent of Hitler's protection of ethnic Germans outside Germany, according to a report published overnight.
"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."
The Press-Telegram appears to have been the only publication present for Clinton's remarks at an otherwise closed-press luncheon fundraiser Tuesday attended by about 250 people to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.
Earlier Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported that Clinton spoke extensively about the situation in Ukraine, quoting Harry Saltzgaver, the executive editor of the Gazette newspapers group in Long Beach, who attended the Clinton event as a guest.
"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.
Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said Putin "believes his mission is to restore Russian greatness," including reasserting control of former Soviet Union countries, the Press-Telegram reported. "When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia," Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.
Clinton added that she believes any compromise between Ukraine and Russia will come in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula where there are many Russian speakers and where Putin has stationed Russian troops. She said she was hopeful about Secretary of State John F. Kerry's diplomatic efforts in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.
"So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn't ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea," Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.
"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."
Clinton is giving a series of speeches this week in California and western Canada. She plans to appear at the University of California at Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon to give a lecture, answer questions from a faculty member and accept an award from the university.
Making her first extensive comments about the crisis in Ukraine, Clinton said at a private fundraiser in California that Putin's campaign to provide Russian passports to those with Russian connections living outside his country's borders is reminiscent of Hitler's protection of ethnic Germans outside Germany, according to a report published overnight.
"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."
The Press-Telegram appears to have been the only publication present for Clinton's remarks at an otherwise closed-press luncheon fundraiser Tuesday attended by about 250 people to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach.
Earlier Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported that Clinton spoke extensively about the situation in Ukraine, quoting Harry Saltzgaver, the executive editor of the Gazette newspapers group in Long Beach, who attended the Clinton event as a guest.
"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.
Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said Putin "believes his mission is to restore Russian greatness," including reasserting control of former Soviet Union countries, the Press-Telegram reported. "When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia," Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.
Clinton added that she believes any compromise between Ukraine and Russia will come in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula where there are many Russian speakers and where Putin has stationed Russian troops. She said she was hopeful about Secretary of State John F. Kerry's diplomatic efforts in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.
"So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn't ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea," Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.
"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."
Clinton is giving a series of speeches this week in California and western Canada. She plans to appear at the University of California at Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon to give a lecture, answer questions from a faculty member and accept an award from the university.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clintons-putin-hitler-comments-draw-rebukes-as-she-wades-into-ukraine-conflict/2014/03/05/31a748d8-a486-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/05/hillary-clinton-says-putins-action-are-like-what-hitler-did-back-in-the-30s/
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