The simplest explanation is that Platner got a Nazi tattoo and didn’t have much of a problem with it until it became a major threat to his Senate campaign.
I don’t know if Graham Platner thinks of himself as a Nazi, or secretly roots against Indiana Jones, or whether he relates to Rolf when he watches The Sound of Music.
But I do know that Platner’s version of events – the one that is allegedly exculpatory — portrays himself as a spectacularly naïve, unobservant and oblivious person. And that version of events is contradicted by several others, including his former political director.
Platner insists that when he got the skull and crossbones tattoo that he had no idea that it was the Totenkopf of the Nazi Schutzstaffel, or SS.
We’ve been told in several glowing profiles that Platner is a military history buff who “devours” books on military history. Apparently, in eighteen years of having that tattoo, he never recognized the skull-and-bones on his chest as the one from the Nazi SS. Never mind the fact that SS uniforms and the skull-and-crossbones upon them are not exactly rare in pop culture movies and TV shows set during World War Two.
Then there’s the question of the Jewish Insider report quoting a source who to contended Platner knew exactly what his tattoo was:
But according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the “death’s head” symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.
“He said, ‘Oh, this is my Totenkopf,’” the former acquaintance told Jewish Insider recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “He said it in a cutesy little way.”
The exchange occurred in 2012 at Tune Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill where Platner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended The George Washington University on the G.I. bill, according to the former acquaintance. He would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, the former acquaintance recalled.
Now, maybe that former acquaintance is misremembering it, or making it up. But we can all agree that if you have a tattoo of the SS, and you know that it’s a tattoo of the SS, and you keep it for years and years, then you are, functionally, a neo-Nazi.
To hear Platner tell it on Pod Save America, he only realized he had a Nazi tattoo very, very recently: “We got wind that in the opposition research, somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo.”
The problem is, that is not what the former political director of his campaign said.
In a Tuesday interview with the Bangor Daily News, former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald, who resigned Friday from serving as Platner’s political director, said the campaign has been aware of the tattoo since she joined the campaign in August. Platner himself told her roughly a month ago he had a tattoo that “could be problematic,” she said.
The campaign denied that, calling it “a lie from a disgruntled former employee.” In a statement, Platner said he didn’t know until last week that his tattoo had a Nazi affiliation in any way.
Readers, I just want you to ask yourself, if you realized you had accidentally gotten a tattoo that was the symbol of the Nazi SS… how many speed limit laws would you break on the way to the tattoo removal service, and/or a tattoo artist to cover it up? How long would you want a mark of the Nazis on your skin? Would getting that tattoo removed be something you’d jot on your to-do list, and get around to doing at your leisure? Or would it be something you’d want to take care of immediately?
You know, when you’re running for a U.S. Senate seat?
Now, maybe the source of the Jewish Insider is lying. Maybe former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald is lying. Maybe everybody around Graham Platner is lying about him and the tattoo, because they all want to smear him as a Nazi, when he just made an innocent mistake in a Croatian tattoo parlor back in 2007. But after a while, Occam’s razor kicks in. The simplest explanation is that Platner got a Nazi tattoo and didn’t have much of a problem with it until it became a major threat to his Senate campaign.
That sounds kind of Nazi-ish.