Twitter can be horrible and difficult to understand, but for an hour every week day, it becomes a magical place, as people from all walks of life gather together to furrow their brows and widen their eyes at the things White House press secretary Sean Spicer is saying during his daily press briefing.
Today — it’s going to take a minute to list everything he said — when asked about Bashar al-Assad reportedly using sarin gas to attack Syrian citizens, Spicer said that even Hitler hadn’t stooped to Assad’s level during World War II: “We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. Y’know, you had … someone who is despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to the, to the, to using chemical weapons.” (*Arrested Development narration voice*: He did.)
Later in the briefing, Spicer attempted to rectify his words, which didn’t help things.
I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no … he was not using the gas on his own people [ed. note: he was] the same way that Assad is doing. I mean, there was clearly, I understand your point. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. There was not, in the … he brought them into the Holocaust centers [ed. note: concentration camps], I understand that. But I’m saying, in the way that Assad used them where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent, into the middle of town, it was brought [ed. note: ???]. So, the use of it … I appreciate the clarification. That was not the intent.
It only took Twitter approximately as long as it takes a person to type “are you kidding me, Spicey,” before the reactions to the press secretary’s statements started rolling in. (Spicer would later issue another clarification — “I was in no way trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust” — but it also wouldn’t help much.)
Maybe he should have stuck to feuding with a freeze-dried ice-cream company on Twitter instead.
