Let me begin by a few thoughts of my own. First, Not Larry Sabato (Ben Tribbett) got his original information NOT from the Webb campaign, but from within the Allen campaign, which means they knew they had a problem. Then Dick Wadhams attempt to cover -- the +óGé¼+ômohawk+óGé¼-¥ explanation seems very much like an act of desperation - with what can we come up to offer +óGé¼-£cover+óGé¼-¥ for what our guy said.
Finally, this legitimizes and reinforces the stories already out - from his past, from what was covered by Ryan Lizza in The New Republic.
And now to the bloggers
from too conservative, a Virginia Conservative website.
First from Terpsfan4life:
As someone who is Indian, Republican, a huge Davis supporter, and (formerly) a casual Allen supporter, I am a little bit upset at Senator Allen and let me explain why. First of all, I do understand that we all make jokes and I am not advocating political correctness. I watch the Simpson+óGé¼Gäós just like everyone else and I can definitely take a good natured joke. I make fun of my own people all the time. But the problem here is that Senator Allen appears to be picking on someone in a mean and malicious way. He appears to be singling out this person in front of a crowd that is presumably mostly white and he thinks that this is going to somehow score him political points. Now, if Senator Allen were making fun of the guy cause he was a Webb staffer, that would be different. But he goes above and beyond that. In other words, it+óGé¼Gäós the tone, spirit, and context of the situation that has me upset.
I should add that Senator Allen was one of the first Senators to speak out in favor of renewing the Voting Rights Act this year. He has also been a co-sponsor of Hate Crimes legislation.
It+óGé¼Gäós not my place to judge whether Senator Allen is a racist or not. I don+óGé¼Gäót know his heart and unlike the left, I don+óGé¼Gäót believe in instinctively attributing all events to race or class. Political correctness is not what I am advocating here. But having said that, you can+óGé¼Gäót be dumb enough to say what Senator Allen said.
Our country and the GOP have both come a really, really long way when it comes to race relations. Thirty years ago, we sat at segregated tables. Today, many minorities own their own businesses. That can only happen in America, or +óGé¼+ôthe city on a shining hill+óGé¼-¥, as President Reagan used to call it.
However, Senator Allen+óGé¼Gäós comments should remind everyone that you don+óGé¼Gäót just ask people for their vote. Rather, you have to earn it. Unfortunately, I will not be supporting Senator Allen in his bid for the US Senate, nor his bid for the Presidency. The fact is that the Senator has a staff that is incredibly arrogant, to put it kindly. I can+óGé¼Gäót tell you how many Republicans I know that feel that way. Also, the Senator comes across, as one of my good GOP friends from New York likes to say, as a person who is +óGé¼-¥ as genuine as a three dollar bill+óGé¼-¥. I know Senator Allen loves to use football analogies. The Senator may think he scored a touchdown with his conservative base when he made those unfortunate remarks. Unfortunately, the reality is that he threw an ill timed interception- one that may cost him dearly in the 2008 Super Bowl that is the Presidential election.
and also from tooconservative himself:
I am pretty dissapointed in Senator George Allen right now.
First, information comes out that he owns stock in a company which makes the morning after pill, and now accusations are flying that he has made incredibly racist remarks.
If this video does surface, it could end Allen+óGé¼Gäós presidential chances, similar to Howard Dean+óGé¼Gäós scream.
Most of the Virginia conservative blogs are totally ignoring the story, and a few are positing that maybe the Webb staffer lied to the Allen campaign about his name to make this a setup (for real, I could not make that up).
I think the fact that the staffer was South Asian has potentially real impact. I am wondering what the reaction of that community will be. Many are businessmen with a natural affinity towards the Republican party, and potentially this can have real impact.
Hey, I have no real idea how this will play out. I hadn+óGé¼Gäót written a diary today, I+óGé¼Gäóve watched the story, I listened to Jim Webb at a fundraiser tonight, my wife has been tracking the spread of the story via the web as it hits website after website of major Virginia media outlets.
The story may be a one-day or two-day wonder, but because it fits a meme that was already out there about Allen -- which he had tried to counteract by cosponsoring the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and appearing with Congressman John Lewis - the story also might have +óGé¼-£legs.+óGé¼Gäó I think back to Ed Muskie: most of the press knew he had a real temper, but had no way of portraying that because in public situations he was always in control. They used his emotional response over the +óGé¼+ôCanuck+óGé¼-¥ letter to take him apart, to let their readers know that this was not the cool controlled customer they thought they knew. if Allen has made inappropriate jokes and comments in the past - and the evidence would seem to indicate that he has -this would legitimize the press keeping the story alive, telling what they know.
We+óGé¼Gäóll see.
I'm glad to see the integrity of the conservatives who won't let him get away with such disgusting behavior, and hope they at least will consider the great leadership Webb has to offer.
I presume that anyone trying to post about it on Redstate would get their post deleted and get banned. Perhaps someone did try to post and it disappeared.
Anyhow, this is my mediocre contribution to the discussion.
The only result is from the infamous RedState.org, a piece titled "Democrats go bezerk over George Allen's supposed 'racism'" that was posed around 630pm.
Click on the link (http://breakingnews....) and you get a "Page Not Found."
But there's a post up there outside the Breaking News piece, if you look for it:
The interesting thing? None of the commenters seem to get that "macaca" is a racial slur.
seems like they know its a problem and trying to defend it makes it worse? We'll see.
Isn't that what we teach 2 year olds?
Allen's comments could be very damaging with moderates and will likely hit home for many minorities. Allen's history is THE problem. It doesn't help that his own campaign manager didn't seem to see a need for an apology. That's also troubling.
There is a group of conservatives who might be leaning Webb's way. I'm talking about the old style, true conservatives--that small government people. The Republican party before it was despoiled by these neocons had a group of people who believed in Civil Rights and would detest a slur like this. There's still a few of those folks around. Not as many as I would like, but still a few.
The other benefit, and I hate to think of getting benefit from something like this--but African-American voter in Virginia will have something to think about when they go to the polls this fall.
There's something about it that really hit me in the gut. I went to UK back in the 60's. There was this one real hardcore "Southern" Fraternity. They would have these confederate balls, and all the girls would dress up in their Gone With the Wind gowns and the boys in their Confederate gray. They had a old cannon and they liked to shoot that damn thing off. By the end of the ball night, the participants, full of Rebel Yell, would be driving around Lexington in their daddy's cars, yelling racist epithets at anyone darker than they and dirty hippie at anyone who had hair below their ears.
When I saw George Allen on UTube today, his tone and manner--that easy racism that comes when the racist really feel comfortable with the people around him--I was reminded of those days back in the 60's. It was so familiar, I wondered if we have made any progress at all.
Allen managed to insult a minority that is providing critical services to a part of Virginia that folks like him refuse to inhabit. And he has particularly embarassed the consuming community in that area.
Too bad simpletons like "too conservative" conflate the trivial with the important. Too bad many Dems can't tell the difference between a real issue and a contrived controversy like the so-called Dean scream. We have got to stop doing that. That was an organized destruction of a candidate by electronic deception for no reason, except the GOP (and other presidential aspirants among Dems) were afraid Dean wouldn't wage a war based on lies. Look where we are now and ask yourselves how imporant it was to diss a candidate for such claptrap. One more time, 3000 supporters were screming (I have heard the complete tape) and you could barely hear Dean, whose voice was raspy from campaigning. He was able to get energy from the crowd and look to the next primary and beyond with optimism. Wow! What a "terrible" thing. (Sarcasm.) Now look at George Felix Allen, Jr., former noose owner, who makes a racist statement. Can you honestly say there is a comparison? The "scream" finished Dean only because voters were too gullible for their own good, failed to question both the importance and the excess of the media effort to trounce him, and turned on a dime. Instead we got the "electable" one and look what happened next.
The next time we have a strong candidate for president who's moderately progressive (that's what Dean was, BTW), fights hard for us, doesn't flinch, and tells the truth instead of the crock we've been fed for the past five years, we'd better not be so easily manipulated. If we are, we have only ourselves to blame.
And as for "Too Conservative," give up the flawed comparison. I've met Howard Dean and George Allen isn't fit to walk in his shadow.
You know, Allen really sounds like he is trying to understand the whole Martin Luther King Jr. movement, and just when you think he has it, boom, the curtain falls.
I think this article is telling for the last line I dropped into this comment. We have to be ready to play the game and in order to do that (his footbal metaphors) we have to get the other side all riled up. Things to come?
"Allen knows the trouble spots in his record and has ready answers. We talk about his sister's book ("It's the perspective of the youngest child, who is a girl"), about the noose ("It had nothing to do with anything other than the Western motif in my office"), and about the Confederate flag once hanging in his living room ("I have a flag collection"). As for his mischievous attempt to scare his classmates into believing that his school was going to be burned to the ground, Allen, who, as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, co-sponsored a resolution calling for a crackdown on school vandalism, denies the incident had anything to do with race. "It was something like eat crap or something like that," says Allen, who was suspended for the incident. "Your school sucks, and so forth. It wasn't racial. Bad enough what I did--didn't have that to it.
Allen knows the trouble spots in his record and has ready answers. We talk about his sister's book ("It's the perspective of the youngest child, who is a girl"), about the noose ("It had nothing to do with anything other than the Western motif in my office"), and about the Confederate flag once hanging in his living room ("I have a flag collection"). As for his mischievous attempt to scare his classmates into believing that his school was going to be burned to the ground, Allen, who, as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, co-sponsored a resolution calling for a crackdown on school vandalism, denies the incident had anything to do with race. "It was something like eat crap or something like that," says Allen, who was suspended for the incident. "Your school sucks, and so forth. It wasn't racial. Bad enough what I did--didn't have that to it.
The purpose was to get your team riled up against a rival."
more here...
http://www.tnr.com/d...