HIllary Clinton tries to walk back Putin-Hitler slam

Hillary Clinton tried to walk back from a comparison she made of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, calling on a critical public to remember she was only speaking to the historical links.

“I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective,” she said, during remarks at the University of California at Los Angeles on Wednesday, as reported by Reuters.

“I’m not make a comparison certainly, but I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before.”

But the former secretary of state under President Obama did in fact seem to draw links between Mr. Putin and Hitler — and between the ongoing dispute between Russia and Crimea to Nazi-Germany in the lead-up to World War II.

Her statements during a private fundraiser on Tuesday in California, as reported by The Long Beach Press-Telegram: She said Mr. Putin’s military invasion of Crimea was similar to what Hitler did in the months before World War II. How? Mr. Putin said he sent forces to protect ethnic Russian in the region — just as Hitler made similar promises of protection to ethic Germans in the eastern part of Europe, she said.

“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” Mrs. Clinton was quoted as saying, in The Long Beach Press-Telegram.

“All the Germans that were, you know, the ethnic 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 down and protect my people, and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”