Why Doesn't the Register Take OC's Holocaust Deniers Seriously?

From left: Weber, Kelso, Fromm. Three skins in suits!

​Hopefully, the new ownership at the Orange County Register will bring a sense of sanity to the paper's recent editorial decisions, most perplexing of which has been to grant longtime editor David Whiting a column. I like his outdoors writing, but as a general columnist, he's a disappointing mix of Yvette Cabrera earnestness, Morning Read fluffery, and Gordon Dillow jes' plain folks approach (without the homophobia, thank goodness).

Really, Whiting is just clueless. In a column last week on how we need to live by Gene Autrey's Cowboy Code (GREAT way to connect to those young readers!), Whiting wrote this curious line: "We listen to comments like the one I heard recently implying that our county is a center for Holocaust deniers (a guy with a website does not a 'center' make)." He's referring, of course, to Mark Weber and his Institute for Historical Review, the country's premier Holocaust-denying publisher. And he probably isn't aware that this afternoon, one of the world's most notorious Holocaust deniers, Bradley Smith (a former worker at the IHR), will speak at Cal State Fullerton.

It's easy to dismiss Weber as a lone loon, but that flies in the face of his tax records, and his recent alliances with known white supremacists that suggest the IHR is only beginning to expand its reach.
Tax record obtained by the Weekly show that the IHR has reported over $1.5 million in donations since 2003--hardly one man with a website, David. As I wrote earlier this year, the white-power American Third Position Party has contributed volunteers and manpower to Weber; he, in return, now frequently hosts American TP parties at his headquarters in a Fountain Valley industrial park. And a couple of weeks ago, Weber hosted the American TP, Jamie Kelso (one of the principal architects behind Stormfront, the Internet's premier skinhead website) and Canadian white supremacist Paul Fromm.

"A guy with a website"? David must think the California Coalition for Immigration Reform is just a retiree's bocce league, probably...