Take Your Eye off A U.S. Conservative For A Minute And He Jumps Out Of His Closet; In The U.K. He Dons A Nazi Uniform

Young Aidan Burley (right) with the PM in happier times

Everyone remembers John Boehner's pal Rich Iott, right? He's an Ohio right-wing kook with an affinity for Tea Party ideology and Nazi pathology-- and dress-up parties. Last year may have been a big GOP sweep in Ohio, but even Ohioans couldn't go that far. Despite some last-minute campaigning for him by Boehner, Iott lost to Marcy Kaptur, 121,819 (59%) to 83,423 (41%). I'm guessing Iott is history. Republicans have certainly embraced fascism, but the iconography and overt Nazism are supposed to stay in the closet with Aaron Schock's, Lindsey Graham's and David Dreier's sexual proclivities.

When the British Conservative Party's newest 32-year-old "it boy," Aidan Burley, an elected Member of Parliament, was exposed as a neo-Nazi, the government tried to save his career by arranging for an educational trip to Auschwitz. But it took just a week of poking around by the media for that trial balloon to come crashing to earth-- along with Burley's future in politics.

When the Guardian covered the story, it literally buried the most important paragraph at the dead end of its report:

The MP will now face a tough fight to re-establish himself among the fiercely competitive 2010 intake after his sacking. He was present when one of the guests at the stag party was filmed saying: "Let's raise a toast to Tom for organising the stag do, and if we're perfectly honest, to the ideology and thought process of the Third Reich."

The Daily Mail, which first broke the story of young Aidan's flirtation with the Hitler cult that still fascinates the Conservative Party, and many rightists here in the U.S., was less circumspect in its coverage.

A Tory MP who took part in a Nazi-themed stag party has been sacked as a minister’s aide.

Aidan Burley, 32, was caught on camera dining with friends, some of whom were chanting: ‘Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.’ He was jokingly described as the ‘candidate for Berlin East’ and toasts were made to the Third Reich.

...The MP for Cannock Chase in Staffordshire was fired as an aide to Transport Secretary Justine Greening when it emerged at the weekend he had hired the SS officer’s outfit for the groom, Oxford graduate Mark Fournier, 34.

Mr Burley, 32, MP for Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, had initially clung on to his job by making a public show of contrition in which he regretted not dissociating himself from ‘clearly inappropriate behaviour by several of the other guests’.

However, his explanation started to unravel after The Mail on Sunday was told that Mr Burley had been the ‘driving force’ behind the SS officer’s outfit and paid for its hire.

After No 10 investigated the claims, a Conservative Party spokesman released a statement yesterday which said: ‘Aidan Burley has behaved in a manner which is offensive and foolish.

'That is why he is being removed from his post as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) at the Department for Transport.’

The floodgates of stories about young Aidan have now opened and, lo and behold, he's a typical spoiled rich asswipe with an oversize sense of entitlement and great disdain for anyone who isn't to the manor born.