Texas Congressman Randy Weber ridiculed after comparing Obama to Hitler

Remark came after White House admitted it should have sent senior official to Paris rally

Randy Weber

Being funny on social media is always a tricky thing. You don’t have that much space, for instance, and people can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not. Over the years, many politicians have learned the hard way that it is often better to leave it alone

Presumably, Texan Congressman Randy Weber thought he was being funny when he posted a comment that contrasted President Barack Obama's apparent unwillingness to travel to Paris for this weekend’s solidarity march, with the desire of Adolf Hitler to get there as quickly as possible all those years ago.

“Even Adolph (sic) Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.),” tweeted Mr Weber, who represents Galveston, choosing not to use the usual spelling of the Nazi leader’s first name. “Obama couldn't do it for right reasons.”

Mr Weber’s comment followed an admission from the White House that it had erred in failing to send a senior representative to Paris for the Cahrlie Hebdo rally that attracted more than 40 world leaders. The US was represented only by its Ambassador to France, something that drew widespread criticism.

On Monday, Mr Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, conceded: “We here at the White House should have made a different decision. This is not a decision that was made by the president.”

Mr Weber’s tweet, posted late on Monday evening, was received with widespread mockery and ridicule. By Tuesday morning it had been retweeted close to 1,000 times.

It is not the first time that Mr Weber, who represents Texas’ 14th District, has found himself in the headlines for his use of social media. Last year, he sent an incendiary tweet from the House floor criticising Mr Obama as the “Kommandant-in-chef” and a “socialist dictator” during the State of the Union Address.

Mr Weber later decided to apologise. "It was not my intention to trivialize the Holocaust nor to compare the President to Adolf Hitler. The mention of Hitler was meant to represent the face of evil that still exists in the world today," he said in a statement. "I now realise that the use of Hitler invokes pain and emotional trauma for those affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust and victims of anti-Semitism and hate."