Will Smith and Adolf Hitler

I don't often step up to the plate to defend celebrities. Most of the time that's because I think celebrities are wrong, or at least not deserving of my attention. Besides, they pay people to defend them on a professional basis, and who am I to cut into some guy's rice bowl?

But this thing with Will Smith and his comments about Adolf Hitler, yeah, I'll stand with him. I read what Will Smith said, and he's right. Here's what he said:

http://news.aol.com/entertainment/movies/movie-news-story/ar/_a/smiths-hitler-comment-sparks-anger/20071223190709990001

In case the link goes dead, here's the paragraph in question:

In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"
[The newspaper then went on to essentially accuse Will Smith of at the very least tolerating Hitler by adding "Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good."]

Now, please to show me where in that statement Will Smith made an error. Hitler did think he was doing the right thing. The fact that the "right thing" in this case was monumentally evil and required a World War and the sacrifice of millions of battlefield casualties, not to mention the brutal slaughter of millions of civilians, to curtail doesn't change for an instant the fact that Hitler thought he was doing the right thing. And I don't see in that statement the slighest whiff of the notion that Will Smith admired, defended or even tolerated Adolf Hitler.

It's too bad I don't have a subscription to the Daily Record, because I'd love to cancel it on the basis of poor editorial standards.

Now, just one more note to the bloggers and commentators out there. It's Adolf Hitler, not Adolph Hitler. One's a notorious evil dictator; the other is a meat tenderizer.