Will Smith Upset Jews with Hitler Comment

The Jewish Defense League is calling on Barack Obama to repudiate Will Smith’s comments, and wants theaters to pull Smith’s new movie I Am Legend from their screens. Smith told a Scottish paper that 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.’"

A rep for Will Smith responded to The Jewish Defense League:

"It is an awful and disgusting lie. It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolph Hitler was a vile, heinous, vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet."

Will is an eternal optomist. He sees good in everyone. The Jewish Defense League is right to be upset, but they need to put this into context. Everyone knows Hitler wanted to reshape Germany into a great country which is a good thing, but he wanted to accomplish his goal by conquering the rest of the world, and eliminate the Jewish people, which is a bad thing. At the end of the day all of Hitler’s good deeds were overshadowed by everything bad he did, and that’s how The Jewish Defense League wants him to be remembered. Will should respect that.

Update: The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement saying that they “welcome and accept” Smith’s statement that Hitler was a “vicious killer” and that it’s clear that Smith didn’t intend for his Hitler remarks to be construed as praise. “He took immediate steps to clarify his words and unequivocally condemn Hitler as an evil person,” says ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman.