Taegan Goddard's Political Wire reports that it has "received an advance copy of a New Republic profile of Sen. George Allen (R-VA)." In the profile:
...author Ryan Lizza finds many of Allen's high school classmates surprised that he's considering running for president because of the racist tendencies he displayed as a teenager. They say he "plastered the school with confederate flags" and drove a red Mustang with a confederate flag on the front.
For the whole story, click here. For more about George Allen's "ugly history on racial issues," read what Brendan Nyhan has to say. For instance:
First, there's the noose he hung from a tree in his law office, which suggests an approving attitude toward lynchings. In 2000, Allen and his Senate campaign manager disavowed any racial connotation, describing the noose as part of a collection of Western memorabilia that represented his law-and-order stance on criminal justice. Then, in February of this year, he tried to claim that it was "more of a lasso" and "has nothing to do with lynching." But reports on the matter that I have read all describe it as a noose, and Allen and his representatives appeared to refer to it as such all the way through 2004. And of course, if the noose "has nothing to do with lynching," why was it hung from a tree? The symbolism seems obvious. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch put it in 2000, the noose was "a reminder that [Allen] saw some justification in frontier justice." Official hangings carried out under the auspices of the law presumably used real gallows, not trees.
Getting back to George Allen's high school antics (in southern California, by the way, NOT in Virginia!), it sure sounds like he's got some 'splainin' to do. So far, all Allen has said on the subject is that "[w]hen I was in high school in California, I generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude." Uh huh. That's what kids do in southern California, eh? Oh, and I take it the noose hanging from a tree is how you "buck authority" as an adult? What. Ever. Get this phony cowboy outta here and send him back to Southern California...or to Iowa, where he wishes he was born!
In Southern California, carrying the Confederate flag might seem less racists and more an attempt to get your ass kicked for looking like a moron. The flag here appear racists.
And that pattern continues. Bill Frist is supposed to be the new, more moderate, more tolerant face of the G.O.P. But he's more mask than face. Senator Frist is a favorite among Republicans in part because of the success he had as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. His job in that post was to raise money and otherwise assist Republicans running for the Senate.Now that Senator Frist is ascending to the majority leader's post, it's interesting to note the Republicans' choice to succeed him as chairman of the senatorial committee. It's none other than Senator George Allen of Virginia, a Neanderthal on matters of race who, like Trent Lott, all but worships at the altar of the Confederacy.
A few years ago, when he was governor of Virginia, Mr. Allen issued a proclamation declaring April "Confederate History and Heritage Month." From Mr. Allen's pro-Confederate perspective, the Civil War was a struggle for "independence and sovereign rights." Independence, in this case, does not refer to the independence of black slaves.
I'd like to know if Senator Allen feels we'd all have been better off if the South had won the Civil War. It's a fair enough question. Mr. Allen loved the old Confederacy so much he displayed the Confederate flag in his living room. He was a little touchy about it, though. When someone accused him of flying the flag in his living room, he took umbrage. "It was never flying," he said. "It was nailed to a wall."
Gee, I wonder why there are so few blacks in the Republican Party.
To be on the perceived winning team, same as Whites.
And let's face it, since only a minority of Blacks support the Republican Party, their "pool" is smaller; and so they get a whole lot of attention by GOP bigwigs; you know, to show the world that in spite of their racist past and current policies, Blacks just LOVE THEM!