Why Japanese politicians should never praise Adolf Hitler

Citing Adolf Hitler isn't a very good way to win an argument. Lots of people try — so many, in fact, that the internet has come up with a rule for Hitler references. Godwin's Law, as it's called, dictates that the first person to compare his or her verbal sparring partner to the Nazi leader automatically loses the argument.

If the Japanese come up with their own version of Godwin's Law, it will probably be named after Taro Aso, the island nation's deputy prime minister and finance minister. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing for Japan to amend its pacifist, U.S.-drafted constitution (which was adopted after World War II), and Aso on Monday offered this suggestion on how to do it:

This remark didn't go over well in China or South Korea, and it drew this response from Rabbi Abraham Cooper at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish group in the U.S.:

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Reiji Yoshida at The Japan Times has a more sympathetic take on Aso's remarks, noting that the deputy prime minister said in his speech that the constitution should be amended "based on public opinions that carefully examined the situation," and not in an "uproar" or "frenzy." Since that contradicts Aso's later statement about the Nazis, Yoshida says, it "may simply have been just more sarcasm over Japanese rushing to amend the constitution." Aso "often uses sarcastic, intricate rhetoric when he criticizes somebody," he adds.

That's basically the excuse Aso used on Thursday when he walked back his remarks. "I would like to retract the use of the Nazi government as an example," he told reporters. "If my entire statement is read, it should be clear that I look very negatively at Nazi Germany."

That doesn't change the fact that Aso's remarks were appalling, says the Vox Populi, Vox Dei columnist in Japan's Asahi Shimbun. "I cannot understand Aso's mindset that cites the Nazis, a power group that committed indescribably horrible crimes, as an example." Even if he meant to say that we should cool down and discuss the constitutional changes in a calm manner, "why does he have to go out of his way to use such an inappropriate expression?" Vox Populi then gives us a history lesson:

At The Associated Press, Mari Yamaguchi and Elaine Kurtenbach remind us why the Japanese, in particular, need to be careful with their Nazi references:

There's some irony in the fact that it is Aso who ensnared himself in this mess, say Mitsuru Obe and Paul Baylis at The Wall Street Journal. With time spent studying abroad at Stanford and London University, Aso "is regarded as one of the few internationally minded politicians of his generation." Like his U.S. counterpart, Vice President Joe Biden, however, Aso probably "talks too much and blurts things out without checking the facts."

Aso's remarks were damaging enough that the prime minister's spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, also felt it necessary to denounce them. The Abe administration "in no way views the Nazi regime in any positive manner," Suga said, and since World War II, Japan "has contributed globally by consistently defending peace and human rights, and that principle remains unchanged."

"What also seems unchanged," say The Wall Street Journal's Obe and Baylis, "is the tendency of some Japanese politicians to make puzzling, sometimes offensive remarks."