(CNN) White House press secretary Sean Spicer forgot the first rule of politics during a press briefing on Tuesday: Never, ever compare anyone or anything to Adolf Hitler. Answering a question about Russia's potential complicity in the Syrian chemical attack last week, Spicer stretched for a Nazi Germany comparison. "You had someone who was as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," he said. "So you have to, if you are Russia, ask yourself is this a country that you and a regime that you want to align yourself with." Er, what? Hitler, of course, used lots and lots of chemical weapons -- in the sense that he ordered the executions of millions of Jews in gas chambers during World War II.Spicer was asked later in the briefing to clarify his comments. In trying to do so, he made it worseSpicer's Hitler comments virtually ensure another news cycle lost to an unforced error
For _, this is the second major slip-up in as many days.