George Allen Gets Creamed by Conservatives
24 September 2006 7:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
George Allen Gets Creamed by Conservatives is TOAST
UPDATE (7:07 p.m.): …and I mean, toast.
\”Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place,'\” said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. \”He used the N-word on a regular basis back then.\”
A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word \”nigger\” to describe blacks. \”It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used,\” the teammate said.
A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word \”nigger,\” though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. \”My impression of him was that he was a racist,\” the third teammate said.
Shelton also told Salon that the future senator gave him the nickname \”Wizard,\” because he shared a last name with Robert Shelton, who served in the 1960s as the imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. … …
The Weekly Standard takes out after George Allen, as reader MikeP says in his
email to me late last night. It's unrelenting. It's also their front cover article.
RaisingKaine
has more. But it doesn't stop there, because George has more problems than \”maccaca\”, as his awkward Jewish confessions continue to ring false.
Here's the bottom line: If
James Webb can get more money to run ads he can win. If Webb doesn't he
will lose.
As we come down to the wire for November, money rules the day. Many of our
candidates have the same challenge. They need all
the cash you can spare.
The CD offer for anyone giving money to our candidates still applies (there was a glitch getting the first batch
of CDs out, which has been corrected). I'll offer them as long as they last. It's the final push. Please give what you can, because every single dollar matters.
Read the article today from George Allen's own. They're doubting he has the
right stuff for good reasons. Maybe that's why Allen has taken to swiftboating Webb. Stephen Colbert struck back. So have veterans.
But there is not doubt that James
Webb does have what it takes. He did when he served in the military, and as he stands today, with combat boots on his feet to honor his son who is now serving in Iraq, he proves it again. Send James Webb to the Senate. He can do what George Allen has refused to do. Hold George W. Bush accountable. It's long past time.
While Allen might have had a good showing substantively, the story that emerged
from the debate was his irate reaction to WUSA-9 television reporter Peggy
Fox's question on a recent report in the Forward that he might have been descended,
on his mother's side, from the Lumbroso family of Sephardic Jews.Fox embarrassed herself by asking the question as though she were the grand
inquisitor at a show trial. But Allen embarrassed himself too, first by standing
there, agape, staring at Fox for asking the question, then by refusing to
answer it. Worse, Allen lied. He told Fox, \”My mother's French-Italian
with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as
I know, raised as a Christian.\” It turns out, of course, that the report
in the Forward was accurate; by the end of the week, Allen had admitted that
his mother informed him in late August that she was raised a Jew. Etty Allen
said that she had asked her son to keep her heritage secret, which might have
led to his dissembling at the Chamber of Commerce debate.Still, Allen's move to embrace this newly uncovered part of his heritage
has been flawed. He clumsily joked to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that his
mother's Judaism is \”just an interesting nuance to my background\”
and \”I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork
chops.\” His campaign quickly accused Webb supporters of anti-Semitism
for posting video on weblogs of Allen's reaction at the McLean Hilton debate.
But this attack was silly. Webb's supporters weren't criticizing Allen for
his heritage; they were publicizing his fumbling attempt to cover it up. As
this goes to press, the issue shows no sign of disappearing.In recent days Allen has been recast as a sort of bumbling phony, confused
about his identity and his message. His encounter with S.R. Sidarth and his
campaign's lame response tripped him up, but that was only the beginning.
Steve Jarding, a Democratic consultant and adviser to Webb, said that what
hurt Allen most about \”macaca\” was that it subverted his image as
a likable guy. \”Ninety percent of Virginians are aware of that tape,
according to our polling,\” Jarding told me. \”It cast a doubt on
everything George Allen built up over 25 years.\” …George
Allen Monkeys Around
Forget the presidential campaign. Can he still win his Senate race?
Oh, and by the way, Happy New Year, George. Enjoy a ham sandwich.
\”I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops.\” — Virginia Sen. George Allen, explaining how news that his grandfather was Jewish is \”just an interesting nuance to my background.\” – Salon
Between the cowboy boots, the noose and the Confederate flag, should we be surprised that Allen pulls out yet another stereotype? How did this guy ever get in the Senate?
