Mayor Douchebag

The mayor of Constanta, Radu Mazare went with his 13 years old son to see the Valkyrie Operation movie, where Tom Cruise plays the unsuccessful Hitler assassin. It is not just another Nazi exploitation movie: it hardly affected the mayor. And with a twist: father and son left feeling so inspired that both decided to wear Nazi uniforms to a fashion show and goose-step on the runway over the weekend.

Even if Romania constantly denied Holocaust till 2004, wearing Nazi uniforms is still illegal and Mazare can get a prison sentence of up to three years. In theory. Even if the Centre for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism sent a letter to the country's general prosecutor urging an investigation of Mazare for breaking the law and instigating a child to follow his example, Csaba Asztalos, the director of the National Agency Against Discrimination said that he won't be prosecuted because this law never applies in Romania. And this is the shock element for me. Not that a social democrat mayor dresses up in Nazi uniform and makes a ridiculous and horrible statement:

I was inspired from the Valkyrie movie ... I wanted to dress like a Vehrmacht general because I've always liked this uniform, and admired the rigorous organisation of the German army.

that comes connected to another declaration:

By no means did I intend to harm and I do not agree with the war and I didn't want to offend the Jews or the Israeli community, with which I'm in a very good relationship and which possibly focused most of their investments in Romania in Constanta.

His lack of basic logic is kind of well known: I heard him a couple of weeks ago making plenty of sexist comments and when the reporter asked him about his misogynism he very confidently replied:

Nonsense, everyone knows that I love women.

It is really worrying that this case is treated by media as a celebrity scandal, the only concern is about international criticism and the fact that Romania will look bad. The fact that wearing Nazi uniforms is treated as something cool and humorous, that Mazare won't be prosecuted because the law never applied before, that he treats this case as something irrelevant. He even said

for how many complaints I already have, is there any problem if I have another one?

and even victimized himself with:

Nevertheless, it was only a fashion catwalk. It shouldn't have received such attention, but in Romania we're generally inquisitors.)

Let's not forget, as Csaba Asztalos said

Mazare is not a top model, but a person with a public position. It is not about
a parade of military uniforms.

And there is still no comment from prosecutors. Probably they are waiting for the whole scandal to pass so that they can get back to their daily routine. And the mayor can continue his political career and job. Because when it comes to make some privileged politicians loose some of their benefits, everything freezes and laws stop to function.