Bleep Storm
Wow. From Macaca-gate to the Alfred Dreyfus treatment and now "Who said the n-word thirty years ago?" – it’s getting to the point where it’s difficult to remember that George Allen vs. James Webb is a U.S. Senate race.
Seems like anymore I have become the pooper-scooper of the blogosphere. How appropriate, then, that I start this recap at the beginning of its latest episode.
MONDAY: Dr. Ken Shelton, a radiologist who was a tight end and wide receiver for the University of Virginia in the early 1970s when Senator Allen was quarterback, claims Allen not only used the n-word frequently but also once stuffed a severed deer head into a black family's mailbox. Christopher Taylor, another ex-U of V teammate, accuses Allen of using the racial epithet in the process of joking that "only [black people] eat the turtles" at a pond near Allen’s residence at the time.
"Noted political scientist" and de facto Democrat partisan Larry Sabato blows his cover as an "objective" political handicapper and corroborates the wholly unsubstantiated charges.
RCP’s Tom Bevan immediately smells a rat:
The Allen campaign promptly produces four other former teammates who refute the Shelton/Taylor/Sabato charges and added that Allen and Sabato were not friends or even acquaintances and never associated in college.
TUESDAY: Professor Sabato quickly begins to backpedal:
Some other interesting facts begin to rise to the surface:
It also emerges that both Taylor and Shelton are Donk political activists who have political axes to grind against Senator Allen, which makes Sabato’s endorsement of their smear job a naked admission of his own leanings and gives the lie to his credibility as an objective political analyst.
NRO’s Mark Levin fears the smear job will succeed by causing panicky Pachyderms to stampede for the tall grass.
WEDNESDAY: Sabato recants – sort of:
"Very credible testimony" that the Allen campaign blew to bits.
Meanwhile, James Webb, Senator Allen’s once-noble challenger and the intended beneficiary of all this character assassination, fell into the same, um, turtle trap:
Fascinating, isn’t it? Senator Allen flatly denies ever having used the "n-word"; Webb never definitively denies it at all. At least that’s the impression I get from "Everybody did it, but I never did most of the time, and if I did I meant it as a compliment."
Mark Levin begins to regain hope that this media mafia hit on Senator Allen will backfire.
THURSDAY: A new poll shows Senator Allen’s lead growing. Dean Barnett, a Webb fan and harsh Allen critic who nevertheless continues to insist that he supports Allen’s re-election, says you can stick a fork in the challenger precisely because of the baboon-like conduct of his campaign, his supporters, and the Enemy Media.
For what it’s worth, Allen launches a purportedly unrelated feminesque attack seeking to link Webb to the infamous "Tailhook" scandal.
Brother Trunk tightens the noose around Professor Sabato as "the hub of a coordinated character assassination."
FRIDAY: Senator Allen introduces introduced a measure intended to benefit black farmers who missed a deadline for a settlement of a discrimination lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture. Nothing of the sort that he hasn’t done before over the past ten years as Virginia’s governor and senator, but now forever to be seen through a jaded lens, if it’s covered at all.
So what do Webb’s nutroot backers do now? What else – hurl more feces. This time about then-Governor Allen allegedly spitting tobaccy juice on a local reporter’s shoes. I seem to recall the last time that particular charge was hurled it was from John Wilkes Booth at President Lincoln after Lincoln visited fallen Richmond after the end of the Civil War. That’s not to say that Jim Webb is out to put a bullet through George Allen’s head. But there are plenty of his supporters who appear ready, willing, and eager to do little short of that on his behalf, and Webb isn’t lifting a finger to discourage them.
~ ~ ~
What are we to make of this? Senator Allen was never considered a vulnerable incumbent in this election cycle. Even after the past month’s sojourn through the gutter his re-election is pretty much a lock. And the past six years have shown time and again that left-wing smear-mongering in the age of the blogosphere and its instant, devastating fact-checking always backfires. So why are Allen’s enemies continuing to try and tar & feather as a "racist" a man distinguished by nearly a quarter century of public service unblemished by racist behavior and distinguished by service to all races?
Do the names "Dan Quayle" and "Jesse Helms" ring a bell?
It has been no secret, at least until the past month or so, that George Allen was considered an upper-tier contender for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Cutting a Reaganesque image, a former governor from a Southern swing state, son of a legendary NFL head coach, Senator Allen had all the resume ingredients of the successful presidential pedigree that has characterized most White House winners of the past two generations. He figured to be a shoo-in front-runner for the Republican nomination and a tough opponent for Hillary Clinton two years from now.
But now? Forget about it. The "macaca" gaffe caused the bloom to start rapidly wilting off that rose, and the opening it gave for the ultra-Left to run wild with another trademark vicious hate campaign has torn the entire rose out root and branch and ground it into mulch. They can’t stop George Allen’s re-election to the Senate, but they can turn him into the next Jesse Helms, another good, decent conservative senator who was indelibly tarred with the "racist" label. And like Dan Quayle, another one-time GOP rising star and presidential timbre whose public image was unjustly and permanently destroyed, they have through despicable innuendo eliminated what was arguably the greatest threat to the Democrats’ re-ascension to Executive power in 2008.
This "coordinated character assassination" is, indeed, no coincidence. Almost makes me wonder if, given enough digging, we’d find the Clinton machine behind it all.
Seems like anymore I have become the pooper-scooper of the blogosphere. How appropriate, then, that I start this recap at the beginning of its latest episode.
MONDAY: Dr. Ken Shelton, a radiologist who was a tight end and wide receiver for the University of Virginia in the early 1970s when Senator Allen was quarterback, claims Allen not only used the n-word frequently but also once stuffed a severed deer head into a black family's mailbox. Christopher Taylor, another ex-U of V teammate, accuses Allen of using the racial epithet in the process of joking that "only [black people] eat the turtles" at a pond near Allen’s residence at the time.
"Noted political scientist" and de facto Democrat partisan Larry Sabato blows his cover as an "objective" political handicapper and corroborates the wholly unsubstantiated charges.
RCP’s Tom Bevan immediately smells a rat:
I happen to like and respect Larry Sabato a lot. But tonight on Hardball he was just lat out wrong to declare in one breath that George Allen had in fact used the n-word and then in the next breath to tell Chris Matthews that he "wasn't going to get into" the specifics of how he knew the accusation to be true.
You simply cannot make such a damning accusation on national television without backing it up. It's both irresponsible and unfair. If you're not going to source that kind of remark, you shouldn't make it in the first place.
The Allen campaign promptly produces four other former teammates who refute the Shelton/Taylor/Sabato charges and added that Allen and Sabato were not friends or even acquaintances and never associated in college.
TUESDAY: Professor Sabato quickly begins to backpedal:
Sabato, who made his comments during an interview on Chris Matthews' Hardball program on MSNBC, later declined to specifically identify his sources.
"My sources are former classmates who came to me with stories that matched up," Sabato said late Monday night. "I never solicited them. They came to me during the past few months."
Some other interesting facts begin to rise to the surface:
The Allen camp released a statement from Allen's first wife refuting Taylor's story. Anne Waddell, who was married to Allen from 1980 to 1984, said she recalled Taylor coming to their home to buy a puppy.
"I can say with absolute certainty that his recollection that George said anything at all that could be considered racially insensitive is completely false," she said. "He would never utter such a word."
It also emerges that both Taylor and Shelton are Donk political activists who have political axes to grind against Senator Allen, which makes Sabato’s endorsement of their smear job a naked admission of his own leanings and gives the lie to his credibility as an objective political analyst.
NRO’s Mark Levin fears the smear job will succeed by causing panicky Pachyderms to stampede for the tall grass.
WEDNESDAY: Sabato recants – sort of:
One of Virginia's best-known political analysts said he had never personally heard Senator 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.
"Very credible testimony" that the Allen campaign blew to bits.
Meanwhile, James Webb, Senator Allen’s once-noble challenger and the intended beneficiary of all this character assassination, fell into the same, um, turtle trap:
Democratic Senate challenger Jim Webb declined to say definitively Tuesday whether he had ever used a common derogatory term to describe blacks, stepping carefully after watching his campaign rival confront charges of racism.
"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 occurrences of 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.
Fascinating, isn’t it? Senator Allen flatly denies ever having used the "n-word"; Webb never definitively denies it at all. At least that’s the impression I get from "Everybody did it, but I never did most of the time, and if I did I meant it as a compliment."
Mark Levin begins to regain hope that this media mafia hit on Senator Allen will backfire.
THURSDAY: A new poll shows Senator Allen’s lead growing. Dean Barnett, a Webb fan and harsh Allen critic who nevertheless continues to insist that he supports Allen’s re-election, says you can stick a fork in the challenger precisely because of the baboon-like conduct of his campaign, his supporters, and the Enemy Media.
For what it’s worth, Allen launches a purportedly unrelated feminesque attack seeking to link Webb to the infamous "Tailhook" scandal.
Brother Trunk tightens the noose around Professor Sabato as "the hub of a coordinated character assassination."
FRIDAY: Senator Allen introduces introduced a measure intended to benefit black farmers who missed a deadline for a settlement of a discrimination lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture. Nothing of the sort that he hasn’t done before over the past ten years as Virginia’s governor and senator, but now forever to be seen through a jaded lens, if it’s covered at all.
So what do Webb’s nutroot backers do now? What else – hurl more feces. This time about then-Governor Allen allegedly spitting tobaccy juice on a local reporter’s shoes. I seem to recall the last time that particular charge was hurled it was from John Wilkes Booth at President Lincoln after Lincoln visited fallen Richmond after the end of the Civil War. That’s not to say that Jim Webb is out to put a bullet through George Allen’s head. But there are plenty of his supporters who appear ready, willing, and eager to do little short of that on his behalf, and Webb isn’t lifting a finger to discourage them.
~ ~ ~
What are we to make of this? Senator Allen was never considered a vulnerable incumbent in this election cycle. Even after the past month’s sojourn through the gutter his re-election is pretty much a lock. And the past six years have shown time and again that left-wing smear-mongering in the age of the blogosphere and its instant, devastating fact-checking always backfires. So why are Allen’s enemies continuing to try and tar & feather as a "racist" a man distinguished by nearly a quarter century of public service unblemished by racist behavior and distinguished by service to all races?
Do the names "Dan Quayle" and "Jesse Helms" ring a bell?
It has been no secret, at least until the past month or so, that George Allen was considered an upper-tier contender for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Cutting a Reaganesque image, a former governor from a Southern swing state, son of a legendary NFL head coach, Senator Allen had all the resume ingredients of the successful presidential pedigree that has characterized most White House winners of the past two generations. He figured to be a shoo-in front-runner for the Republican nomination and a tough opponent for Hillary Clinton two years from now.
But now? Forget about it. The "macaca" gaffe caused the bloom to start rapidly wilting off that rose, and the opening it gave for the ultra-Left to run wild with another trademark vicious hate campaign has torn the entire rose out root and branch and ground it into mulch. They can’t stop George Allen’s re-election to the Senate, but they can turn him into the next Jesse Helms, another good, decent conservative senator who was indelibly tarred with the "racist" label. And like Dan Quayle, another one-time GOP rising star and presidential timbre whose public image was unjustly and permanently destroyed, they have through despicable innuendo eliminated what was arguably the greatest threat to the Democrats’ re-ascension to Executive power in 2008.
This "coordinated character assassination" is, indeed, no coincidence. Almost makes me wonder if, given enough digging, we’d find the Clinton machine behind it all.
posted by JASmius at 9:34 PM
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