Centerfield

The offensive remarks made by Senator George Allen have all the makings of a Dick Wadhams campaign. Wadhams cut his political teeth in Colorado and has been seen as the person behind the rise of Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado veterinarian. Wadhams went on to orchestrate the campaign against Tom Daschle in South Dakota and is now leading Allen's reelection effort.

Dick Wadhams is a man many have called Karl Rove's protégé. During Wadhams work in Colorado for Senator Wayne Allard's 2002 reelection, he gave one of the most acerbic victory speeches I have ever witnessed. While gloating at the defeat of Ted Strickland, his comments were vile and hateful. The man is Karl Rove absent a scintilla of decorum and decency...if you can imagine that! It appears that George Allen believes that two bullies are better than one.

Read full article here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Dan, do you have any evidence that suggests that Allen in fact associates with this fellow, or is it simply the case that you are suggesting that we should associate them simply on your say-so?

I'm going to assume that it's the latter. At the present time, I've got no good reason to attribute Allen's choice of words to anything more evil than ignorance and chagrin. I think he probably was trying to ruffle or intimidate the guy that his opposition had assigned the job of rattling and tripping up Senator Allen. Let's not pretend that politics is a gentlemanly game of beanbag. This guy was shadowing for Allen for obvious reasons, and clearly it's worked out quite well for Allen's opponents, who will try to make the VERY most of this incident.

Obviously It's Allen's bad that he so clumsily engaged the guy when he should have just kept ignoring him. But I'm not throwing him under the bus. I have no dog in this fight, so I'm not inerested in making either the most of this or the least of it. Allen took a clumsy and ignorant jab at his shadow, which IMO shows more political ineptness than racism or meanness.

Now if a pattern of bullying meanness could be shown, that'd be different. But let's at least wait until we have, oh, let's say TWO instances before declaring an enduring pattern. I've suggested this this is our minumum standard for pattern recognition here. :-)

"Allen took a clumsy and ignorant jab at his shadow, which IMO shows more political ineptness than racism or meanness."

Sounds like a perfect candidate for President of the U.S..

This is not likely to continue very long as an issue and Jim Webb would be wise not to pick at that thread himself, not that he's likely to.

Allen is probably in the same category as Trent Lott on the ignorance scale, that is, simply oblivious of some people might take the comments. Still the use of word Macaca is a little suspicious. I've never even heard of that word.

The worst indictment against Senator Allen is that he's running for an office he plans almost NO time in serving in. It seems to me that if Webb can brandish his foreign policy credentials and not make an giant fauz-pas he can AT LEAST make the case that Allen, should he win the Senate Race, should NOT run for President in 2008. He should ask him to sign a pledge to that effect.

It would be one thing if had been running for re-election in 2004 and was considered a prospect for '08. Serving 4 of 6 years is probably forgiveable, but planning to serve only 2 years and spending most of that pining for the Presidency... well, I don't think Virginia loves George Allen QUITE that much.

In any case, Allen stills has the edge, but I think it should be relatively easy for Webb to make it close and knock him out of the Presidential race, if not the Senate.

To me, the most likely cause is that one of his staffers used the term Macaca and Allen heard it and thought it funny, not thinking the word meant anything. I don't think he would be that stupid to use a word that he knows is a slur on tape. However, he may have been dumb enough to repeat a word someone else used without trying to find out what it means. Either way, it was just plain stupid of Allen.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

One of my absolute favorite dictums, Bobby! It's on the short list.

The New Republic did an article about Allen and his supposed attachment to Confederate culture, suggesting that he had, at the very least, had some racist leaning.

http://www.tnr.com/thisweek.mhtml?i=20060508

I don't like Allen, but IMO, this isn't very compelling. He was young and clearly sort of rebellious. He seems to have taken to Confederate culture as a way of expressing his alienation from where he lived, but I don't know whether you can read much into his current attitudes. In some ways, it's like Ted Turner. When he was in college, he apparently made some anti-semitic remarks. I certainly would not vote for him, but not because of what he did 20 or 30 years ago.

Racist? IMO, nope

in French it's also a slur for dark-skinned people of North Africa, and George Allen's French-speaking French mother just happened to come from North Africa, and George Allen speaks French.

Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room.

So I would be interested in why you seem to think it is not racist.

I'm inclined to believe that:

a) Allen knows macaque is a slur in French referring to North-Africans, given his French heritage. ("macaca" also means "female monkey" in Spanish, and may also be used to mean fool)

b) He didn't intentionally mean to be racist. Like Jim M. said above, he probably overheard it and thought that's what the guy's name is. Should've just ignored the dude.

As a first generation immigrant from India, I should be offended by such comments by the politicians - George Allen, Joe Biden and Hillary Clnton have made derogatory comments about people from India. Such comments are not limited to republicans or democrats.

Majority of Indians in the U.S. are successful professionals who work hard and play by the rules. The children of our generation have now grown up and they are also showing success in various fields, probably because their parents instilled the value education and hard work in them.

What is up with these politicians? Are they afraid of our accomplishments?

However, I am not about to make a big deal out of it. We are not here to play victims, just to work and make life for us and our children.

This reminds me when I first got to Afghanistan, and everyone was referring all of the locals as "Hadji." I figured it was in reference to the Hajj, and sort of a degrading way of using a respectful term by applying it to a majority-- something like the way Soldiers refer to Korean male civilians as "adashi" (meaning "Mister" in Korean). But when I asked some colleagues, they all said, "No, it's because we're in Afghanistan and Hadji was Johnny Quest's friend." All I could think of was the irony that Johnny Quest's adopted brother wasn't Afghan, but Indian.

I once won a radio call-in trivia show by successfully answering the question: "What is the name of the animated TV show in which the main character had a young boy with a friend named Hadji and a dog named Bandit, who flies around the world on his own airplane?"

Precisely Bobby, that's a more concrete example of what I was trying to get at. People use words like that without giving a second thought as to what they might mean, Usually such a term functions as a source of amusement amongst the speakers but it often morphs into a form of derision. And obviously if you're using a word without knowing what it means, then by definition you're acting ignorantly.

I dont say that to be derisive of Allen or the soldiers you mention. We all do ignorant things from time to time, and we'd be well served, when others point it out to us, to be open to admitting this is so when others point it out to out. Especially when it's a small and obvious thing. I'd hope that commanding officers would point out to their men how refering to all members of any ethnic group by any sort of pet nickname could end by reflecting poorly on our country.

And that's such a tough thing, because the guys over there have all they can do to stay alive and do their jobs without worrying about each one of them being a representative of an entire nation. But there it is.

Invariably, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Korea, the Command Sergeant Major (which is the chief sergeant in the unit for those unfamiliar with military ranks) will issue an edict stating that Soldiers are not to refer to the locals as hadji or adashi.

Such orders are typically met by the Soldiers (and even many of the Lieutenants and some Captains) with skepticism when they complain to me. "But, sir, it only means X" (where X is some value-neutral term), failing to understand that the meaning and impact of words can transform and deviate from their original or intended meaning. (Actually, some of my LTs understood this, they're just being little instigators).

If I've got time, I try to explain to them the importance of establishing positive relations and that we're all ambassadors of American public diplomacy, so our good conduct is essential to accomplishing our objectives. If I'm tired or busy, I just smile and tell them, "Well, he's the Sergeant Major, so whether you like it or not, you better comply with what he says."

Uhhh...I think he also said 'Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!'

What is THAT? The dude was born in Northern VA!