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In an age in which an American president can be accused of giving white supermacists a boost by condemning them for their hatred, bigotry and so forth, one would think world leaders would be more careful what they say.

Not so, apparently.

In an effort to make a point about political ends outweighing political means, the Japanese Deputy PM — inadverently, presumably — praised none other than Adolf Hitler himself.

As reported by RT.com, Japan’s Taro Aso remarked in a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party that,

“I don’t question your motives (to be a politician). But the results are important. Hitler, who killed millions of people, was no good, even if his motives were right.”

Needless to say, Aso’s observation was not well-received in Japan or around the globe.

The Tokyo-based SNA Japan, for example, tweeted this response:

Deputy PM Taro Aso is talking about Adolf Hitler again, and, as always, it really isn't working out for him. pic.twitter.com/qfIpTAMLy1

— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) August 29, 2017

Others went much further in their condemnation. Reuters reports:

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed “distress and disappointment” at Aso’s comment.

“This is just the latest of a troubling list of ’misstatements’ and are downright dangerous,” the center’s head, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“These words damage Japan’s reputation at the very time when all Americans want to show their solidarity with Japan, our sister democracy and ally, following the missile launch from Kim Jong Un’s North Korea,” he added.

Aso at least acknowledged that Hitler was “no good” — hooray for that! — but one wonders what he considers to be Hitler’s motivation if he thinks Hitler’s “motives were right.”

As SNA Japan and Rabbi Cooper both reference, this is not the first time Aso has seemed a little too admiring of the top Nazi.

According to RT.com

In 2013, he called on local politicians, revising the US-imposed pacifist constitution, to learn from the Nazis’ amending the constitution of the Weimar Republic.

“Germany’s Weimar Constitution was changed before anyone knew. It was changed before anyone else noticed. Why don’t we learn the technique?” Japanese media quoted Aso as saying during an event in Tokyo.

Aso has since apologized for, and retracted his statement.

But given his past remark, as well as another complimentary remark toward Hitler made by a prominent Japanese bank exectuve, one wonders whether others in Japan hold this view of their World War II ally.

[Note: This post was written by dk. Find him online at the African American Conservatives (AACONS) website or AACONS on Twitter and Facebook]