George Allen in Black and White
Virginia Senator and 2008 GOP presidential hopeful George Allen continued to burnish his neo-Confederate credentials this week. During a reelection campaign event in front of an all white audience, Allen singled out Jim Webb campaign volunteer and U.S. citizen S.R. Sidarth as a "macaca." In his apology, Allen feigned ignorance of the meaning of the term, a North African racial slur likely not unknown to Allen's Tunisian mother.
This sad episode is just the latest chapter in Allen's lifelong romance with the Confederacy and the ante bellum South. As Perrspectives described in June 2005 and again this July, George Allen has been nothing if not consistent when it comes to issues of black and white.
For the details, see "George Allen's Flag Desecration," below. As the Washington Post reports today, the already bitter Virginia Senate race between incumbent George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb is getting downright nasty. Watching his lead dwindle and his 2008 presidential hopes put in peril, the Vietnam-era freeloader Allen is attacking the patriotism of the Vietnam war hero Webb over the former Navy Secretary's refusal to join Allen in backing a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration. Ironically, it is the Confederate Flag George Allen seems most concerned about it.
As Perrspectives detailed back in June of 2005 ("Confederacy of Dunces"), George Allen has been a Confederate flag waving romantic with a deep fixation for the antebellum South throughout his public career:
Allen, who in 2005 co-sponsored a resolution apologizing for the Senate's past use of the filibuster against anti-lynching legislation in the 1920's, displayed a Confederate flag and a noose at his home. While governor of Virginia, Allen declared "Confederate Heritage Month" and branded the NAACP an "extremist group."
In April 2006, Ryan Lizza of the New Republic ("George Allen's Race Problem") provided a devastating portrait of Allen's love affair with Confederate symbols dating to his youth. Before Allen donned his cowboy boots as an "authentic" Virginia Senator, as a Southern California teenager he sported a Confederate flag lapel, "plastered the school with Confederate flags," and may well have painted racist graffiti. As Lizza details, Malibu George Allen became a Dixie lover by choice, suggesting some deep-seated need to express a rebellious identity at best or perhaps some much more profound social pathology at worst.
Unsurprisingly, Allen's lifelong passion for Confederate symbols of secession and treason hasn't stopped him from lambasting the patriotism of Jim Webb. Webb graduated first in his Marine officer class at Quantico and won two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, a Navy Cross and the Silver Star Medal during his stints in Vietnam. Predictably, Allen's campaign manager Dick Wadhams used the flag amendment issue to give Webb the Max Cleland treatment:
"James H. Webb Jr. continues to demonstrate he is totally beholden to the liberal Washington senators who dragged him across the line in the Democratic primary. By announcing his opposition to the flag protection amendment, James H. Webb Jr. puts himself firmly on the side of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer."
The Webb campaign was quick to respond, blasting Allen as a Vietnam no-show while Webb was fighting it out in the jungles near Danang:
"Jim Webb served and fought for our flag and what it stands for, while George Felix Allen Jr. chose to cut and run. While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."
It's not even Labor Day and the venom and vitriol are already overflowing in the Virginia race. But while George Allen will claim he seeks to protect the American flag Jim Webb fought for, it will be the Confederate flag that remains close to Allen's heart.
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Thanks for the continuing in-depth reporting and opinion.
Posted by Kenneth Poli on August 28, 2006 4:55 AMThis sounds like a gibberish from a bellicose Yankee who is ignorant of the South and Southern patriotism. You should read further about Lee, Jackson, Kirby-Smith, and others who were Southern patriots and heroes. The Confederate flags - all of them - Bonnie Blue, First National, Second National, and Third National, and the battle flag are symbols of patriotism and sacrifice. By the way, the first permanent English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and not Plymouth as some Yankees would like to believe.
Posted by John Murlin on September 26, 2006 3:30 PMIts wonderful that George Allen is so pro-Confederate, according to this article! He need not head to Washington in 2008 to be president, he can just stay in Richmond, the capital of the Confederate States of America and follow in the footsteps of Jefferson Davis to become our nation's 2nd president.
Posted by Patrick Pressler on September 28, 2006 6:28 PM