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.
FOTFLOL!
as I'm sure was the intention, it will be hard to get rid of the stigma of the allegation.
What a dirtbag.
Thanks and a tip o' the hat to McLame, Feingold for getting the CFR bill passed, thus allowing the media to do hit pieces on whom ever they don't like, and giving the victim no arena for rebuttal.
Why would any CREDIBLE commentator rely on "gossip" as a story in the first place?
Answer: they wouldn't.
This is the trend of the liberal media though: present as "unconfirmed facts" anything you want to make up out of thin air.
No it won't, if we work hard enough and expose it all as lies and a hit job. This is pretty close to Rathergate in terms of "reputable" people just making stuff up because their hatred of Republicans got the better of them. If we can take down Dan Rather, we sure as hell ought to be able to take down this pipsqueak Larry Sabato.
What did Levin say?
Good catch, twigs.
Good point. Too bad we can't get the MSM to carry anything remotley vindicating to the GOP or this Administration.
Let me guess: Allen was one of the "in crowd" and Sabato wasn't.
Thank you for getting the facts straight for me. I was a student there at the time. I was thinking Sabato was class president, but he was student council president. It all comes back. And I thought he graduated earlier than that. So we overlapped more than just one year. Sabato was well known at the time; I never heard of Allen then. But I'm very glad to say that I have heard of Allen now. And would mightily like the opportunity of voting for him for president.
I'm not sure that's true, but it could be. I was't in the "in" crowd either, so I wasn't hobnobbing with them. And there was an "in" crowd there. Had a lot to do with family background. I was a poor girl from a blue-collar family who had to work her way through. I didn't know many like me there and for some, those things made a difference. I had one teacher gasp when I told him my father was a member of a labor union; he hadn't met any other student who could say that. And with an Italian name, I assume--without knowing, of course--that Sabato was not of the Virginia elite. He was, however, well known on campus and apparently, was well known on his own merits. I never heard of Allen until he ran for governor. I was a youth leader at a rural church where his wife was a member after I left Charlottesville. I know that she was highly respected among people I liked and respected.
So, maybe he did come from a known family and Sabato pulled himself up by his bootstraps. I don't know. But Allen has accomplished a lot more--silver spoon and all, if indeed there ever was a silver spoon there.
A few years back I had some respect for Sabato but he sure has changed. You have to wonder what kind of epiphany these former conservatives have had. Is it just the fact that they get much more TV time if they are moderate/liberals? How shallow can that be? All this says to me is that the Rats are really desperate. They see they have a very good chance of losing NJ and they are grasping at any Republican Senate seat they can find. These are sick sick people with a deranged psychotic need to control the government and all peoples' lives.
Larry Sabato lost ALL my respect. He SHOULD have said "I've been told"...not "He DID"...as he wasn't there!!!
"MSNBC should be sued, as should Matthews."
MSNBC has turned into the MoveOn.org of cable television!
If you didn't hear Allen, keep your yap shut! Simple as that Larry. Geez, and you call yourself a professor? My God Larry. Stupe!
If he had kept his pie-hole shut either way, he wouldn't be in this conundrum he finds himself in.
I betcha Larry predicted he would be asked that one question.
I noticed that too. That wig he used to wear looked like it was 30 years old. Made him look like Larry from the Three Stooges.
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