Formula One is run by two people - Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. For a long time, Mosley was the unquestioned dunderhead of the pair. I suspect there's never a good time to get caught having Nazi-themed BDSM parties in your basement, but when your father was the founder of the British Union of Fascists, it looks particularly bad.

However, Mr. Ecclestone is making a charge at the title in recent days. First, while giving an interview about Formula One's troubled future, he suddenly decided to go off on a tangent praising Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

"In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done."

"I prefer strong leaders. Margaret Thatcher made decisions on the run and got the job done. She was the one who built this country up slowly. We've let it go down again. All these guys, Gordon and Tony are trying to please everybody all the time ... Max would do a super job, he's a good leader. I don't think his background would be a problem."

"Politicians are too worried about elections. We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he was the only one who could control the country. It was the same with [the Taliban.]"

(Did I mention that Max is the son of the founder of the British Union of Fascists? I'm sure he'd be a great Prime Minister.)

So that wasn't good. Today, in an attempt to do damage control, he actually said "Many of my closest friends are Jews."

Also, when it was pointed out to him that the president of the World Jewish Congress had called for his resignation, he responded that he thought the WJC should be "sorting out the banks", because "they have a lot of influence everywhere."