Lest I be haunted by a former ghost:
Republicans and Democrats need to be especially aware whenever the old hatreds of past generations seep into today’s politics. It’s intolerable, and a sin against the public square.
In that spirit, I think this has gone far enough.
I wrote this in June 2006, shortly before the now-infamous comic of former Democratic candidate Harris Miller came to the fore from the Webb for Senate campaign.
Folks, there is no good explanation here. I know what a “makakah” is and it doesn’t mean “mohawk”. It’s a derogatory word used by Arabs to describe Africans. There is no good context, there is no good explanation for the use of the word other than pure ignorance.
For review:
(1) This is not a case of silliness.
(2) This is not a manufactured controversy.
(3) No, the fact that the fella may have had a mohawk in the past doesn’t make “mohawk” sound like “makakah”.
(4) This is not a mere case of a harassed politician venting.
(5) Nor can this be dismissed as a statement that sounds like a racial slur, but wasn’t.
(6) Nor is Dick Waddhams an idiot.
(7) Most certainly, George Allen is not a Klansman as a result (sorry James…)
(8) And no… this is not some sort of subconscious reach from the senator’s youth.
Let us all agree here and now — this was an insensitive comment made by an otherwise brilliant politician.
Many items come to mind. Firstly, one can’t help but draw the comparison to Senator Allen and gentleman he epitomizes, Thomas Jefferson. The Jeffersonian Conservative ideal isn’t just a catchy phrase used to win elections. Allen believes in it, as passionately as many Virginians do. It’s a genuine third way, rooted in principles many Americans have forgotten.
Jefferson is revered as one of our greatest Founding Fathers, and yet like Jefferson, the junior senator from Virginia is rooted in the past. Has anyone quite forgiven the gentleman who wrote the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom and the Declaration of Independence as a slaveowner? Certainly that is far worse than any offense Allen (or his competitor, Jim Webb) has offered in speech and print, yes?
So in the face of such a comment, what has Senator Allen done?
Something his predecessor Thomas Jefferson never had the chance to do. Apologize.
“I would never want to demean him as an individual. I do apologize if he’s offended by that. That was no way the point.”
Yet this cannot pass without a contrast to Democrat Jim Webb’s gaffe when he attacked Harris Miller. yet what was Jim Webb’s response to his anti-Semitic comic?
“Harris hasn’t apologized for distorting my views on affirmative action, I’d kind of like to hear that.”
So now you have it.
Both Senate candidates have made gaffes such as these during this election.
Allen had the character to apologize.
Webb has yet to apologize.
Friends, that tells me all I need to know.