In an appearance on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel to promote his new book “A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred,” Washington Post columnist George Will reacted to the Obama administration’s suggestion Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions are a relic of the Cold War.
“They really believe the world changed when we turned into the 21st century,” Will said. “They didn’t notice the first thing that happened in the 21st century was an act of war against the United States in downtown Manhattan and at the Pentagon. They think war somehow is out of date. War is the great human constant. Western literature begins with ‘Homer’ – it’s all about war. It’s been war ever since, and it won’t change. Now, Scoop Jackson, a great Cold War Democratic senator said of the Soviet Union, and it’s true of Putin — the Soviet Union is like a burglar walking down the hall of a hotel testing all the doors until it finds one that is open and then he goes in. We have to make sure the doors are closed and he believes the doors are closed.
Will went on to explain that Putin isn’t comparable to Hitler except that he views his role as leader of the Russian people similarly.
“Absolutely, he’s not Hitler, but he’s read Hitler’s playbook,” Will added. “Two days before the Munich Conference, Hitler gave a speech in 1938, September, saying there are 10 million ethnic Germans, German speakers, living outside the borders of the Reich, in the Sudetenland, in Czechoslovakia, in Poland. He said it is intolerable for me to accept this. I would be unworthy to lead the German people. I think Putin feels exactly the same way. If he can’t bring them home to Mother Russia, he’s going to move Russia’s borders out to get them.”
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