S. R. Sidarth, the Jim Webb for Senate volunteer who filmed Sen. George Allen nicknaming him 'Macaca,' appeared Tuesday on the far-left Pacifica Radio network show "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman, the playground of wild-eyed radical leftists like Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, and Noam Chomsky. Sidarth replayed his outrage. But the show also featured Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an expert The Washington Post also used to denounce Allen. He was denouncing Allen as a racist on the nationally distributed show, traveling rapidly from little off-the-cuff nicknames to "neo-Confederate hate groups" and Trent Lott praising Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat campaign for president:
Well, sure. I mean, essentially it’s a 25-year record of flirting with these sort of Confederate ideas -- really, not "sort of." I mean, one of the highlights, at least in my mind, is when he was running for governor in ’93, or actually shortly after he was elected, and designated a Confederate History Month in Virginia. And the statement, I think, was quite amazing, the actual words that went with the declaration, in which he described the Civil War as, quote, "a struggle for independence and sovereign rights." You know, I think that kind of captures the whole thing. I mean, the man was governor of a state that includes Black people, although he doesn’t seem to understand that. You know, it’s just a remarkable kind of characterization of what the Civil War was about. You know, it’s very much what we see coming out of the neo-Confederate hate groups that we cover as part of our work.
There’s a long history that involves things like, you know, opposing redistricting that would have made it possible for a Black representative to be elected from Virginia for the first time since Reconstruction, joining and then un-joining, as it were, a club with a long racially exclusive history that many other governors had refused to join.
And it goes on from there. I mean, he’s very associated with the Confederate battle flag. I mean, as long ago as high school, he was wearing a pin in his lapel with this flag, and, you know, as has been widely reported, also had a flag at a certain cabin he had in Virginia, which he describes as part of a collection of flags.
...The whole thing, at least to me, is reminiscent of the Trent Lott sort of series of fiascos of a few years ago. You know, I remember when Lott was exposed, actually by us, for having very close connections to the Council of Conservative Citizens, which is a white supremacist group, a descendent of the old White Citizens’ Councils...That whole story just reminds me of this episode. I think we're seeing the real George Allen. I think that this is not some freak moment. It’s not a psychotic break. This is what the man really is.
