File this one under "What a sick puppy".
Over the past five years Stein's organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein's cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll.
There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – a close circle of confidants only found out the truth recently – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998.
The Guardian
"My friends are horrified," said Cole, now aged 44 and with greying hair. "They rang and emailed to ask if it really was me. The Hollywood types are the ones hurting the most right now because they could be harmed by this. I'm feeling a certain amount of guilt."
A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF GUILT?
This man is a Holocaust denier who then made respected Holocaust documentaries. What does he really believe?
The recanting was fake, he said. Cole today still challenges established Holocaust scholarship, including the certainty about Nazi gas chambers. "The best guess is yes, there were gas chambers" he says. "But there is still a lot of murkiness about the camps. I haven't changed my views. But I regret I didn't have the facility with language that I have now. I was just a kid," he said this week.
The best guess. How sweet.
Take a look at the picture in the linked article. I give you the face of modern conservatism. Intellectually dishonest, possessed of strong opinions contrary to all facts and reason (exactly what DID happen to the millions of Polish Jews, David? Was there a Semitic Rapture limited to Eastern Europe?), willing to say or do anything for a buck, and feeling "slightly guilty" that every friend he has is going to suffer because he lied.
I will give the last word to someone with a functioning soul.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said Cole's views on the Holocaust could no longer be attributed to youthful naivete. "I'm very disappointed that someone who abused his Jewishness to get his five minutes of notoriety still stands by his lies. It's disgusting and puts him in the camp of bigotry."