Posted on 09/27/2006 7:42:34 AM PDT by truthandlife
One of Virginia's best-known political analysts said he had never personally heard Sen. George Allen use racial epithets, despite saying on television a day earlier that the senator "did use the n-word."
Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press, "I didn't personally hear GFA (Allen's initials) say the n-word.
"My conclusion is based on the very credible testimony I have heard for weeks, mainly from people I personally know and knew in the '70s," Sabato wrote.
Sabato, a classmate of Allen's at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s, said Monday on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" that he knew Allen had used racial slurs, but declined to say whether he had witnessed them.
Allen, a Republican who had been mentioned as a presidential contender and is now fighting an unexpectedly difficult race for a second U.S. Senate term, had said through a campaign aide that Sabato's claim was inaccurate.
"We're obviously glad that Mr. Sabato clarified his comments," said Dick Wadhams, Allen's campaign manager. "We remain committed to trying to dispel these erroneous stories that have been out there."
Also Tuesday, Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, declined to say definitively whether he had ever used a racial slur to describe blacks.
"I don't think that there's anyone who grew up around the South that hasn't had the word pass through their lips at one time or another in their life," Webb told reporters.
Webb referred to his novel, "Fields of Fire," which aides said includes passages using the n-word as part of character dialogue. But he added: "I have never issued a racial or ethnic slur."
Asked for clarification of his original answer, spokeswoman Jessica Smith quoted Webb as saying, "I have never used that word in my general vocabulary or in any derogatory way."
She declined to say whether he had ever used the word apart from when he wrote his book.
Allegations of racial insensitivity by Allen dating to his high school days in California have become a major distraction for the senator since August, when he called a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent "macaca." The word is considered a racial slur in some cultures.
On Monday, a former football teammate of Allen's, Dr. Ken Shelton, said he heard Allen frequently use a common slur applied to blacks among white friends while in college. Allen called the claim "ludicrously false" and released statements from four other ex-teammates defending the senator and rejecting Shelton's claims.
Also in interviews with the AP and Salon.com late Sunday, Shelton claimed that on a hunting trip to Louisa County in 1973 or 1974, Allen stuffed the severed head of a female deer into the oversized mailbox of a black household near Bumpass, Va., 40 miles east of the university.
But in interviews Tuesday, two Louisa County sheriff's deputies who were on the force in the early '70s said that they recall no complaints about severed animal heads.
Retired Lt. Robert Rigsby said he was in charge of investigations in the early '70s, and any such report would have gone through him.
"I think that's a myth," Rigsby said.
Oh, I have no doubt Allen earned a bunch of "gentleman's Cs" at UVA. He isn't the sharpest knife in the block, but he hasn't claimed to be. Chuck Robb wasn't exactly a Mensa member either, and talk about someone who got where he was by family connections! Mr. LBJ's Son-in-law wouldn't have gotten elected dogcatcher in Virginia or anywhere else without that family connection. I'll bet LBJ was a big college hero of Sabato's, and he also resents Allen for beating Chuck Robb in 2000.
If Sabato is behind this, he is finished as a commentator on Fox. MSNBC will probably hire him in a heartbeat, though.
If that is the case, i.e. Revenge of the Nerds, then that would make Larry more of a self-serving liberal than a conservative any day!
The requirements of perfection these days is totally ridiculous. At least if you're a Republican. I like what Bill Bennett says all the time: All saints have a past and all sinners have a future. We do and say things we shouldn't. All of us do. The key is whether or not we mature, change and move on. And then have a future.
Why?
He did what he did to smear Allen. Getting caught was something he never counted on and doesn't deter most lying liberals.
LMAO! Who would trust anyone who wore a leisure suit?
He strikes me as a possible "C" student. A lot of future successes aren't academically brilliant. I heard Brit Hume say recently that he didn't do superbly there either. But they all made it through. And made something impressive of their lives that has helped all of us. That's the key. They have character that they use in public service. Bill Clinton may really be a brilliant policy wonk. But he's indecisive, a poll chaser and zipper challenged. He's not fit to be president of the dog club, must less the United States.
The thing with perfection and politics is that it's almost a perfect bar to getting competent people to run the government. Almost a guarantee of mediocrity.
Fake but accurate, the rallying cry of the liberals.
I couldn't agree more.
Page one news in the NYT? No?
Well, if the Democrats want to keep whining about the right-wing attack machine, we might as well be attacking them. I am definitely writing to Fox and to several talk-show hosts to demand that Sabato be fired and never be called again by anyone for expert political analysis.
That's bull. I don't remember what people said last year. There's no way you can remember what was said in the 70's. PURE fantasy and hit job on Allen.
Without documentation, for the media even to broadcast this is totally irresponsible. To do so, then, means that they are part of a "Get Allen" campaign.
Allegations of racial insensitivity by Allen dating to his high school days in California .....
Everyone knows what's coming next, right? His Elementary School ....
Permanant Record!!
That will be the final nail.
Oh well, that's what he gets for putting Cathy Miller's pigtails in the ink well back in the 3rd Grade.
Sabato, just your typical lying MSM cable news talking head. Most of the press is lying opportunitsts trying to turn someone's misery into their good forturne, that was certainly true when MacArthur and Hecht wrote the Front Page and now the rewards for sensational liars like Sabato are even greater.
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/040406/news2.html
April 4, 2006
Sen. Allen’s foe in Nov. is old friend of McCain
By Jonathan Allen
EXCERPT
“Party activists expect a presidential contender to have strong home support, and if Webb (or Miller) could even come close to Allen in 2006, the results would raise questions about Allen’s own base,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Indirectly, any weakening of Allen would help McCain, and some other GOP presidential candidates.”
Despite the longtime friendship between McCain and Webb, a former Republican, the Arizona senator said he is backing Allen. Even so, in an interview outside the Senate chamber last week, McCain called Webb “a war hero” and “a great patriot.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-1_13_06_LS.html
January 13, 2006
The Presidential Prizefight '08
Ideology Versus Electability in Both Parties (Part I: The Republicans)
By Larry Sabato
EXCERPT
The polar opposite of McCain is the Beltway insiders' choice for GOP nominee, Senator George Allen of Virginia. Allen has long been a conservative golden boy, and where he does not fit the Right's requirements, he has been flip-flopping his way toward acceptability (changing his support of hate crimes legislation that includes sexual orientation to opposition, switching from opposition to support of the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and so on--not to mention finding religion on ethanol, Iowa's quid pro quo for caucus consideration). The Allen image of charismatic cowboy-cum-tax cuts reminds his ardent supporters of Ronald Reagan, though critics see in him a re-make of George W. Bush: a very conservative, tobacco-spitting Southern governor with a misspent youth, a hee-haw demeanor, a lack of substantial foreign policy experience in a dangerous age, and ever-ready inarticulate bromides that substitute for sound policy. Nonetheless, if Republicans decide to stick with the tried-and-true, Allen could easily end up as the party's presidential nominee. Having defeated women for both the U.S. House in a special 1991 election and then the Virginia governorship in 1993, Allen would hope for a Hillary Clinton nomination--his easiest path to the White House.
Well, well, well...... Oh Larry, pssst, over here, look what your buddy wrote !
"Fields of Fire"
James Webb
"Plus I got the nigger’s twenty bucks. Not bad, huh?”
She nodded approvingly: not bad. “What happened to the nigger?”
And Webb also wrote in " Women Can't Fight "
that one of the ( Naval ) academy's coed dorms as "a horny woman's dream" and said that he had never met a woman he "would trust to provide . . . combat leadership."
I know many Southern men and have never, ever heard one of them use the n word. Never.
Webb must believe that Clinton used that word. And Jimmy Carter. And Al Gore.
Maybe it's only Democrat men that use the n word.
sabato is a lying dim limp-wrist!
LLS
No, leave it there, it's burning up left wing funds and doing nothing for them.
No one watches, they are heading the way of Air America..
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