A Democratic Senate candidate in Maine can’t make up his mind about his Nazi tattoo.
Graham Platner will have to get past Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills this summer in a primary election if he hopes to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins, but as it stands, he can’t seem to get out of his own way.
The U.K.’sDaily Mailreported Platner’s chest tattoo — a totenkopf, or death’s head symbol used by the Nazi SS — came to light last October.
At the time, Platner claimed he had only been informed of its significance a few days earlier.
However, a former acquaintance toldThe Jewish Insiderthat he had called the tattoo a ‘totenkopf’ in 2012 during a conversation at a bar in Washington, D.C.
Platner has explained that he got the tattoo during a night of drinking with buddies while he was in Croatia, on leave from the U.S. Marines in 2007.
However, in an interview last week withZeteo, Platner trotted out his newest defense — that the tattoo is just a “skull-and-crossbones,” adding he views it as “an eminently reasonable thing.”
In the interview, however, Platner proceeded to recommend the 1985 Soviet anti-war film,“Come and See,” which focuses on the Nazi occupation of Byelorussia during World War II and “prominently and repeatedly shows the similar ‘Totenkopf’ on Nazi uniforms,” the Daily Mail reported.
“The fact that the 1985 film is one of his favorites may undermine his claims that he didn’t know the association of the symbol with Nazis,” the outlet observed.
His former political director, Genevieve McDonald, also questioned Platner’s denial of the Totenkopf’s history. “He knows damn well what it [the tattoo] means,” she said, according toPolitico.
Source: VidNews » Feed
