Bring on Sen. Barack Obama!

Larry Sabato, who is one of the most respected political observers and professors in Virginia has confirmed that when he was a student with Sen. George Allen (R-VA) in the 1970’s, he heard Sen. Allen use a racial slur to refer to blacks. George Allen has repeatedly denied that he has ever used the “N” word.

George Allen is a liar, a bigot and a racist. He is going to go down for this. Vote Jim Webb.

According to Salon and as reported by Political Wire:

“Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.”

Virginia Sen. George Allen, explaining how news that his grandfather was Jewish is “just an interesting nuance to my background”:

“I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops.”

What a sensitive guy…

Sen. George Allen (R-VA) is a verified racist. He was caught hurling racial slurs at a young campaign volunteer for his opponent and his popularity and poll numbers are tanking.

This morning Max Blumenthal at The Nation released a very telling piece on Sen. Allen’s racist past and his embracement of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group descended from the Klan. Allen will lose this race, because overt racism transcends party labels. Allen is un-American and he should be punished by the voters for his un-American, bigoted views. George Allen might just be the stupidest, empty-suit politician alive today.

Well, maybe not.

If you read one article today, read this piece.

One of the questions I had about Eve Kessler’s fascinating look at Senator George Allen’s Jewish roots is whether Allen has known about this heritage but played it down, or whether it was news to him.

Bob Gibson, a longtime columnist for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, relays the following anecdote, which seems to clear things up:

It’s funny, but the only time that George Allen ever wanted a correction from me in 27 years of covering his races was when I wrote about his mother’s Jewish family origins. He insisted, through a press secretary, that his mother was raised a Christian.

As I said, this controversy is taking a toll on Allen. A Zogby poll released yesterday has Webb up 1%. Not significant in numbers, but it’s the movement that counts. Even if the spread is 4-5% in reality, this race is tightening and putting enormous pressure on Allen. This is a good thing!

From the New York Times:

Senator George Allen of Virginia personally apologized to a volunteer for his opponent’s campaign on Wednesday for a perceived racial insult, addressing a misstep that has complicated his re-election campaign and raised doubts about his potential as a Republican presidential contender in 2008.

A few hours before he appeared with President Bush at a fund-raising event, Mr. Allen telephoned the volunteer, S. R. Sidarth, to say he was sorry for mockingly referring to him as “macaca” at an Aug. 11 campaign event. Mr. Sidarth, a 20-year-old college student, caught the moment on video as part of his job of recording Mr. Allen’s public appearances, and it quickly became a sensation on television and the Internet.

What did Allen say in his apology?

“He apologized for his comments,” said Mr. Sidarth, who is an American of Indian descent, in a telephone interview from the University of Virginia, where he has resumed his classes. “He took the blame for saying them, and he said he didn’t realize how offended I was until he heard my comments from the media.”

George Allen is not only an empty suit, he’s a bigot and he doesn’t deserve to be a member of the United States Senate. His racist past and this latest debacle have certainly disqualified him from being President or Senator.

The latest polls have shown support for Allen is dropping and the netroots community – particularly DoubleSpeak – has hit him from every angle.

Beating Allen should be a priority for every American. There is no room for ANY racism in America and especially in the United States Senate.

Jim Webb in 2006.

Well the spinning continues in Macaca-gate. If you’re not familiar with the story you can catch up here but the gist is that Sen. Allen is a bigot and publically harassed a minority staffer from Democratic opponent Jim Webb’s campaign. Well now the Allen campaign has another explanation. From Hotline:

What does Macaca really mean? Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday’s videotaped encounter.

According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”

Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.” Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend’s event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen’s version of the event.

Translation: Senator Allen isn’t a bigot, he’s just a huge asshole.

However, based on my analysis of some recent comments that George Allen made to a 20-year old kid, I can now call a spade a spade, or in this case, a bigot a bigot.

Here is the video of Allen’s overt racism:

From this morning’s Washington Post:

At a campaign rally in southwest Virginia on Friday, Allen repeatedly called a volunteer for Democrat James Webb “macaca.” During the speech in Breaks, near the Kentucky border, Allen began by saying that he was “going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas” and then pointed at S.R. Sidarth in the crowd.

“This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great,” Allen said, as his supporters began to laugh. After saying that Webb was raising money in California with a “bunch of Hollywood movie moguls,” Allen said, “Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” Allen then began talking about the “war on terror.”

Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.

Now let’s remember that George Felix Allen’s mother is of Tunisian/Italian/French. So clearly Allen knows the racist connotations inherent in the word as Jeffrey Feldman took the time to document.

Macaca’ or ‘macaque’ is a nasty racial epithet alright. It is often used by American white supremacists to describe black people. In Belgium, it is a racial slur for ‘dirty arab.’ Could this be George Allen’s Mel Gibson moment?

What I hope to show in these results are instances where the word ‘macaca’ or ‘macaque’ are being used as an offensive racial slur on par with other more familiar racial slurs. This research is intended to clarify what exactly happened in the outburst by George Allen using sources commonly available to anyone with a computer.

This is a man who thinks he can be President of the United States???

I know people who work for the GOP and they think Allen is an empty suit. I always knew he was an empty suit, but now I believe he’s a racist. Senator Allen should apologize on his knees to that poor kid. With all of the problem’s America faces, the last thing we need is a bigoted Senator from Virginia.

Vote Jim Webb in November: He might not be an ex-football star, but at least he’s not a racist.

Former leader Trent Lott from Mississippi is looking like he could make a comeback to get his old job back. This, my friends, would not be good for America.

From The Hill:

The prospect of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) returning to leadership next year is creating more and more buzz on and off Capitol Hill, Republican insiders say.

The higher volume of talk has been fueled partly by his former aides who hold influential lobbying positions downtown, but prominent GOP insiders with no special allegiance to Lott say it extends well beyond his inner circle.

Perhaps by coincidence, Senate Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has recently sought a more public leadership role, appearing more often before television cameras set up outside the GOP conference’s Tuesday luncheons, and has otherwise made himself more available to the press.

If Lott were to return he would have to challenge one of several colleagues for a leadership post. At the end of last year, he said he could challenge McConnell’s bid to become majority leader, but he has since backed away from that threat.

Lott resigned his post in 2002 after some pretty inappropriate comments at Strom Thurmond’s 145th birthday party.

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either,” Lott said at last week’s party.”