Posted on 05/01/2006 6:22:21 AM PDT by rhema
Is Sen. George Allen a racist?
Who?
If you mention George Allen outside Washington and Virginia, most people don't know who he is. Yet the spin machine trying to cast Allen as a racist — as prequel to his presidential candidacy — already is operating at full throttle.
Thus, before millions of Americans are able to match Allen's name with his face, they'll likely be able to link his name to the label — racist.
The fact that the mudslinging has begun so early — while Allen is busy running for re-election to the Senate — confirms how seriously opponents take his presidential candidacy.
Allen, indeed, is a favorite among Republicans. He's also the one Democrats worry about most, according to an insider who told me, "The one Hillary's worried about is George Allen."
Allen-the-racist is not a new story, but it just got new wheels with a profile in The New Republic by Ryan Lizza titled: "George Allen's Race Problem," wherein we learn that Allen once had Confederate flag stickers on his red Mustang and wore a Confederate flag lapel pin.
It's right there in the picture.
In his high school yearbook, circa 1970.
Lizza writes that he hesitated to mention the picture during an interview with Allen. It was high school, after all. But he finally decided to broach the subject when Allen recalled a disturbing early-childhood memory of driving through Mississippi with his family and seeing a burning cross in the distance.
For Lizza, that made the lapel pin even more ominous.
"Why would a young man with such a sensitive understanding of Southern racial conflict and no Southern heritage (Allen grew up mostly in California) wear a Confederate flag in his formal yearbook photo?"
My dear Dr. Watson, what could it all mean?
Allen didn't have an answer because he said he couldn't remember the pin. Maybe he was just showing off? Being a cut-up? A renegade?
If Allen were in high school today, maybe he'd get a tattoo or wear a ring through his nose, but in the early '70s kids didn't have many options for self-expression or shirking convention. You could grow your hair, maybe, or do something really radical like wear a lapel pin.
I'm not here to defend Allen or the Confederate flag, though as a Southerner, I know that the Confederate flag is a complicated symbol that means different things to different people. Racist to some, for sure, it is a symbol of history and family valor for others.
I also know that if we're going to scrutinize people's high school records as we vet them for public office, nobody gets to run. Why stop at high school? Has anyone talked to Allen's kindergarten teacher?
Imagine in 10 or 15 years when today's kids, who have e-mailed all their lives and exposed their silliest selves on Web sites like Facebook.com, decide to run for public office?
Lizza and others have pointed to other "signs" suggestive of Allen's "race problem," such as a Confederate flag he used to display in his home that was part of a flag collection. Allen also had a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his law office that was part of his Western collection and symbolic of his tough attitude toward crime.
That collection also included a wagon wheel, by the way. Weren't wagons associated with Western genocide against the American Indian? Is it possible that Allen is anti-Choctaw?
Channeling Dr. Watson, what all this means is Allen is considered a serious contender, and there's no real dirt with which to bring him down. If you can't find a dead girl or a live boy in the man's bed, by all means find a Confederate flag in his closet.
Lizza otherwise does a fine job of painting a portrait of a man so naturally colorful, a writer doesn't need adjectives. He's a tall, friendly former football player who loves country music, chewing tobacco and cowboy boots. He also loves being a Virginian, even if he grew up elsewhere, and loves being Southern, even if he's not quite.
It sounds to me like George Allen was a bit of a renegade growing up, looking for a way to be original in a family led by a famous, powerful father — NFL football coach George Allen.
In the early '70s, when everybody was smoking dope, protesting the Vietnam War and waging lovefests, slapping a Confederate flag sticker on your Mustang and wearing a Confederate lapel pin was most likely the act of a rebel, not a racist.
About the Confederate flag ... WHO CARES!?
No Republican candidate can be taken seriously in their campaign for the presidency until they've been accused of being a racist. Looks like George Allen has "made it".
Ain't that the truth about the Confederate flag. I knew so many "Northern Yankees" who wore the Southern Cross during the 70s. It was indeed a sign of rebellion and had nothing whatsoever to do with race.
The leftist media are going on the war path against our next president.
I like this guy already.
Yep. Once the label "racist" gets thrown at someone you know you have a good candidate.
I had a huge confederate flag in my den just ten years ago. The doggone thing was once on the Dukes of Hazzard television show, and that was since Allen's lapel pin. These Pavlovian communists are amazing in their ideology, stupidity, and ruthlessness.
Allen didn't have an answer because he said he couldn't remember the pin. Maybe he was just showing off? Being a cut-up? A renegade? <<<
Hmmm.
What could have been going on/popular to possibly explain this?
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Nobody does, with the exception of the likes of Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, and Cynthia McKinney. Which, of course, means the MSM thinks the rest of us should care too.
YAWN
Thats my reaction everytime I hear the word racist.
Sure beats the hell out of the MEXICAN FLAG.
Given the rutnlessness of the Democrat spinners, I honestly think this is a kiss of death for Allen's presidential candidacy.
Outside of the conservative elements of white southerners, most Americans do view the battle flag as racist--that's a fact of perception, even if totally unfair. The DemocRats will beat that drum until all America is deafened by it.
I always like these kinds of things coming from Liberals. It helps to have ammunition in your arguments...
"So...you think that Republicans and conservatives are the party of hate, bigotry and racism because a member of their party wore a confederate flag as a lapel pin as a skinny teenager in high school? Fair enough. How do you feel about Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia being one of the bright lights and elder statesmen of the Democratic party, when he wore the sheets of the Klu Klux Klan as a fully grown man?"
I love that exchange. I just need a liberal to drop it on.
ping
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I was based at Ft. Jackson in 1991 and they still flew the rebel flag at the courthouse in Columbia S.C.
Nobody cared then either.
George Allen is one of those "guest worker" salesmen.
I'd rather support Tancredo or Gilchrist.
They're on the right side of this issue.
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