Why is this foot-in-mouth? it was a stupid no win question he handled it fine and my guess is there will be a backlash for him.
I don't understand why anybody would get upset over what he said. It's just a case of the media trying to make a story.
However, the whole purpose of exercises like this are establishing how the candidate works under pressure.
This was certainly not a "no-win" question. If fact, for most politicians it would have been a complete softball. Allen totally bobbled it. Handling it fine would have been something on the order of, "I'm so glad you asked. Yes, my grandfather was Jewish and our family has always taken great pride in our heritage."