Laurie Hawn: "Heil Jack!"

Laurie Hawn is a prominent Alberta Tory who almost succeeded in unseating Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan in 2004. He is unapologetically right-wing, even for today's Conservatives, and he's won the nomination again for the upcoming election. So imagine my surprise to read a post about health care and the military in his blog this morning and find him referring to Jack Layton, of all people, as a Nazi:

Okay everyone, hands up all who think that the Duty National Socialist Leader, Jack Layton, would put himself at the back of the queue if he (or his wife) needed an MRI. I didn't think so.

There are two possibilities here. One is that Mr. Hawn doesn't realize that the moniker 'National Socialist' has historically referred to one and only one thing, namely a member of the NSDAP, or National Socialist German Workers' Party, known colloquially as Nazis. If this is the case, then I have to seriously question his knowledge of basic political history. The other possibility is that he actually did mean to refer to Jack Layton as a Nazi, in which case I have to doubt not only his judgment, but his sanity as well.