Eric Cantor: GOP Whip Asleep On Nazi Issue

11 October 2010 |permalink | email article

No thinking American should be surprised The Atlantic has uncovered a Republican congressional nominee posing in a Nazi SS Waffen uniform which surfaced online this weekend.

Rich Iott, a Tea Party favorite who seeks to unseat Democrat Marcy Kaptur in Ohio’s 9th District, insists he’s not a Nazi sympathizer but a history buff who liked participating in historical re-enactments.

Iott has admitted being involved with the WWII re-enactment historical society Wiking for many years. It shows him a member as early as 2003; he claims he joined “as a father-son bonding thing.”

The issue appropriately surfaced in a debate on Fox News Sunday when Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz raised the example of Iott, a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program, as an example of right-wing GOP extremism.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor responded that “she knows that I would absolutely repudiate that and not support that.” Wasserman Schultz responded, “Well, you haven’t.” Canter, who is Jewish, responded “I’m doing that right now. You know well and well I don’t support anything like that.” She is the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Florida.

Cantor’s hysterical criticism of Iott reflects badly on his role in Minority Leader John Boehner’s inner circle; more key is the rising viral role the Tea Party movement has in reshaping the GOP.

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