Rating: 
November 14, 2007
THE first thing you notice about the racist skin heads on the National Geographic special "American Skinheads" is that the white racists featured have the worst skin on national TV.
The second thing you notice is that the five o'clock shadows on their shaved heads reveal that most of them also have giant receding hairlines.
I can understand now why they shave their heads (better to be angry with a shaved head than angry with a giant comb-over, I suppose).
But why anyone would want to preserve the national purity of skin that's bursting with giant acne pustules, I can't say.
That aside, the special is scary on several other levels.
For one thing, in 2001 there were 5,000 known racist skinheads (as opposed to regular old hate-everyone skinheads). In 2007, there are now 10,000 of these mugs.
The show shows and tells, in chilling detail, how easy it is these days to recruit disenfranchised kids and older, powerless men via the Internet.
It's a magnet for lonely loonies who find a family for their fear, anger and hatred.
The documentary follows some of the leaders of the most vitriolic, violence-promoting groups who, as it turns out, all seem to be bigger publicity whores than Paris Hilton - and just as bright.
Take Martin Cox, skinhead out of Orange County, Calif.,who is a musician/hate-monger who says of Mexican immigrants: "It's time to start killing these people and getting them outta here!"
I guess that would include the Mexican volunteer firefighters who came over the border to help put out the wildfires that were started by an American kid.
Then there's Erich Gliebe, president of the racist record label Resistance Records, with sales of $1 million a year and whose groups promote the idea that the US should be divided by race, sexual preference and religious creed.
I don't know which side Gliebe would fall on however, because he's a strange shade of grey - like jaundice is one second from setting in.
Most ignorant of all is a guy in a cowboy hat named Tom Metzger. He is an Internet-radio host and former KKK member who preaches violence and hatred against everyone who doesn't look like him and his group.
I don't blame him. If there are no other men left on the planet maybe these extremely unattractive, pasty men can finally get lucky.
"American Skinheads"
Tonight at 9 on National Geographic
'Money' Runs Down The Aisle Tonight
'SNL' Works Wonders For Brian Williams
Nancy Grace In Hospital
Justice Is Blonde
Late-Night Hosts Strike Out
