George Allen

Is there a clumsier group of newspaper character assassins than the hit squads at The Washington Post? On October 2, the Post was back on the racist-Republican attack with a 3,000-word investigative treatise over a rock. Specifically, Gov. Rick Perry had leased a property where the N-word was painted on a rock, and then he had it painted over with white paint.

But investigative genius Stephanie McCrummen could see a virtual Klan hood on Perry’s head. “As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.”

"The Democratic Party is moving faster and more aggressively than in previous election years to dig up unflattering details about Republican challengers. In House races from New Jersey to Ohio to California, Democratic operatives are seizing on evidence of GOP candidates' unpaid income taxes, property tax breaks and ties to financial firms that received taxpayer bailout money."

So began a Washington Post article published Wednesday with the provocative title, "Democrats Digging Harder Than Ever for Dirt on Republicans."

As one reads Philip Rucker's piece, you can almost feel the entire Post staff wishing for Democrats to produce a "macaca" moment that just might save them from a devastating defeat in the upcoming midterm elections (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

Howard Kurtz on Sunday said most mainstream media outlets "really blew it this week" in how they reported North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge's attack on students.

"Most treated it as intriguing footage or a good gossip item, but the guy went bonkers when approached by two young men with a video camera," Kurtz said near the end of CNN's "Reliable Sources."

After playing the video of the incident, Kurtz surprisingly asked, "Remember how the media went nuts over that tape of Republican Senator George Allen using the word 'Macaca?'"

He continued, "By minimizing this footage of a Democratic congressman, most news organizations have enabled their critics to charge once again that they have a double standard" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In a video celebrating the five-year anniversary of YouTube, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric listed what she thought were the top five examples of "citizen journalism" on the video sharing website, including "the famous 'Macaca moment'" of Virginia Senator George Allen, which "put politicians from both sides of the aisle on notice....there's always a microphone near by." (h/t TVNewser)

Couric began the three minute video by touting how YouTube has been "Raising awareness of human rights abuses and providing first hand accounts of conflicts and catastrophes moments after they strike." She explained: "I picked five videos that demonstrate for me the power of the medium and how a simple video upload can be a catalyst for change."

Like many in the media, the first "catalyst for change" video that came to Couric's mind was Allen's 2006 remark: "...before the age of YouTube it might have been just a local news spot at most, but it went viral online and badly hurt his chances for re-election."

On the May 17 broadcast of NBC's Today, marking YouTube's 5th anniversary also included Allen's "Macaca moment," with co-host Meredith Vieira noting how web videos have "sunk" the careers of some.  On CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, host Howard Kurtz observed how the website "soon became a political tool. When Virginia Senate candidate George Allen referred to an Indian-American as 'Macaca,' the videotape went viral."   

During a segment where the Today cast celebrated the fifth anniversary of YouTube, in which they highlighted such clips as the Numa Numa Kid and other faves, Meredith Vieira, on Monday's show, threw an unexpected cheap shot at former Senator George Allen's way. Noting how YouTube has launched careers of those like Justin Beiber, Vieira -- right before a clip of Allen making his "macaca" quip -- went on to dig that it has also "sunk them." Vieira failed to point out what really drove the hits to the Allen video were the Democratic Party of Virginia and all of its enablers in the liberal media like NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and of course the Washington Post. [audio available here]

The following excerpt was aired on the May 17 Today show:

A publicly-traded corporation, The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) publishes a daily newspaper which includes daily editorials aimed at influencing public opinion inside the corridors of Congress, White House, and regulatory agencies, and ultimately over voter preferences at the polls.

What's more, the Post Company's newspaper has demonstrated its willingness to devote virtually limitless resources in its efforts to pound out a negative drumbeat in the final days before an election. Just ask former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) or Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.), two targets of the paper's openly hostile campaigns to derail their candidacies in favor of their endorsed candidates, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and State Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Va.) respectively.

Yet when it comes to conservative groups or non-mainstream media for-profit corporation engaging in the same use of "unlimited independent expenditures" to influence voters, that's an entirely different story for the Post, which slammed yesterday's Supreme Court ruling as "Judicial Activism Inc.":

As most NewsBusters readers are aware, former Virginia Sen. George Allen's re-election campaign in 2006 -- and likely his entire political career -- was destroyed when media members spent months focusing attention on a word he uttered that likely nobody in the nation had ever heard of prior to that point.

At the forefront of such politically motivated obsession was the Washington Post which according to LexisNexis mentioned the word "macaca" along with Allen's name in 107 articles prior to Election Day 2006.

Now, according to the Washington Examiner's Michael Barone, the Post might be trying to do the same thing to the Republican candidate in the Virginia governor's race, Bob McDonnell: 

Washington Post staffer Christopher Twaroski's 18-pargraph September 21 story on how John McCain was "Seeking Minority Groups' Support" in Northern Virginia quickly morphed from a rehash of former Sen. George Allen's "macaca" moment to a gauzy focus on Sen. Barack Obama's campaigning efforts in the Old Dominion.

Twaroski opened his article noting that the former Republican senator from Virginia was the featured guest speaker at a Saturday GOP "ethnic unity rally" held in Alexandria, but quickly shifted focus to a disruption by two Democratic protestors:

When he first reached the podium to speak, Allen was greeted by a shrieking whistle and two women screaming: "George Allen is a racist! Shame on the Republican Party for having him speak!"

The outburst referred to remarks by Allen in his 2006 reelection campaign against James Webb, in which he used a slur to refer to one of Webb's campaign volunteers, a college student of Indian descent.

Washington Post reporter/advocate Tim Craig (along with Michael D. Shear) led the newspaper’s incessant "Macaca"-wielding crusade against conservative Sen. George Allen in 2006. Now, on the heels of Sen. Jim Webb’s national-media tour for his new book "A Time to Fight," Craig is back to promote Sen. Webb as an attractive running mate for Barack Obama in an article headlined "Webb Would Be a Bold Choice for Obama’s No. 2."

Craig had a long list of positives, but the negatives were more fascinating. Craig reported one down side was "Webb remains relatively unvetted because much of the focus during the 2006 Senate race was on former senator George Allen (R-Va.)." The Post’s dynamic Democratic duo certainly failed to do that. Instead of a vetting, Webb was aggressively celebrated as a novelist, a scholar, and a tribune of the poor Scotch-Irish "redneck" folks of the South.

Let's have some fun deconstructing Frank Rich's NY Times column of today. The gist of The Grand Old White Party Confronts Obama is that it will be nearly impossible for McCain to defeat Obama because the Arizona senator reflects the politics of an almost all-white GOP in the age of a changing America.

Rich begins by mocking the the "collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols" who flanked McCain during his victory speech on the night of the Potomac Primaries. Adding insult to injury, Rich replays Letterman's line about the GOP presidential hopefuls looking like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”

Letting out a journalistic "Ha-ha!" a la Nelson Muntz, the Washington Post ran an article sure to remind disspirited conservative voters in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia of what might have been if former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) had been able to run a 2008 presidential campaign and unite the Republican Party:

RICHMOND -- As Virginia voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday to help choose the Republican nominee for president, state and national party leaders are left wondering: What if former senator George Allen had never uttered the word "macaca"?

After years of preparing for a 2008 presidential run, including trips to Iowa and New Hampshire and formation of a national network of donors, Allen's use of the word on Aug. 11, 2006, changed the landscape of the GOP nominating contest.

As opposed to the fabulous discussion that occurred on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” as a result of the presence of a balanced panel, “The Chris Matthews Show” was the epitome of what transpires when a program is stocked with exclusively liberals.

Though “Matthews” also focused on the 2008 presidential candidates, without the existence of even one conservative guest, the 30-minute segment was practically a love-fest for Bill and Hillary Clinton, with a dash of grossly grotesque Gore gushing on the side.

In fact, host Chris Matthews, after introducing guests Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Patrick Healy of the New York Times, Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News, and Joe Klein of Time magazine, actually began the discussion with this sycophantic praise of the Clintons:

Imagine for a moment that one of the leading Republican presidential candidates said that 10,000 people had been killed by the recent tornado that destroyed Greensburg, Kansas, Saturday.

Do you think this would have been easy fodder for the broadcast television news divisions that always seem fascinated with gaffes made by folks on the right?

If your answer is an unequivocal “Yes,” then why did ABC, CBS, and NBC completely ignore Sen. Barack Obama’s statement Tuesday wherein he accidentally exaggerated the death toll from the Greensburg tornado by 9,988?

As reported by the Associated Press (emphasis added, video available here):

If George Allen turned up on Good Morning America to protest an incident of alleged anti-white bigotry, what are the odds the GMA host wouldn't mention Allen's macaca moment? I'd say they'd be a Dylanesqe "Love Minus Zero."

But when GMA aired a clip this morning of Al Sharpton expressing his outrage over Don Imus' recent comments about the Rutgers women basketball players, not a discouraging word was heard about Sharpton's history of racially-charged statements and actions that go far beyond the former senator's gaffe.

View video here

GMA CO-HOST CHRIS CUOMO: Now leaders in the African-American community are targeting Imus as a racist.

SHARPTON: I am not one that feels this can just go away, without establishing a serious precedent that enough is enough.

Last week, the Senate Ethics Committee exonerated former Virginia Senator George Allen on charges that he failed to report stock options he earned during the time he served as a director of a biotech company. As Cal Thomas throughly documented in his current column, this determination of innocence has gone little noticed by the mainstream media. The accusations, however, which were made last October during Allen’s heated, and ultimately unsuccessful, reelection campaign, were heavily covered.

As noted by CNSNews.com, the charges, first reported by the AP, were picked up and editorialized in several prominent Virginia papers. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee even used the claims in an ad for Allen’s Democratic opponent James Webb. (See above picure) Not so coincidentally, Senator Allen ended up losing his pivotal Senate seat by around 8000 votes. So the question is, now that it turns out the media hyped faulty accusations, where does Senator Allen go to get his reputation and his Senate seat back?

In his March 1 column, Cal Thomas commented on the shoddy coverage by the liberal media [emphasis added]:

Imagine if one of the leading Republican candidates for president in 2008 like John McCain or Rudy Giuliani had a civil lawsuit for campaign finance fraud pending against him. Do you think that the media would be following this action with every legal brief filed, and every breath uttered by anyone involved?

Well, there is a huge campaign finance fraud case pending against Hillary Clinton that was enacted by the largest contributor to the junior senator’s 2000 campaign almost three years ago, and the media couldn’t care less. Those looking for some background regarding this issue should read a comprehensive analysis of the subject published by the New Media Journal last March.

With that in mind, on January 11, a brief was filed concerning this action in the California Court of Appeals alleging criminal misconduct by the lady who would be president that no media outlet reported except for World Net Daily:

Kate Zernike's front-page profile of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (featuring a large picture of Pelosi shaking Bush's hand at last night's State of the Union address) opened with a celebration of Pelosi's femaleness and ends with "poignant commentary" by the left's new favorite Bush fighter, Democrat Sen. James Webb of Virginia.

"The first two words of the evening on Tuesday were evidence of how much has changed here: 'Madam Speaker,” boomed Congressional escorts, 'the president of the United States.'"

The Washington Post’s coverage of their favorite new Senator, Virginia’s Jim Webb, whom Post writers describe as a "self-styled warrior-poet," was predictably folk-hero favorable after his typically prickly and pompous Democratic attack after the State of the Union address (although the Post account did avoid the word "Macaca.") Post reporter Michael D. Shear, a crucial part of Team Webb in taking down Sen. George Allen, shyly noted Webb became a "a folk hero among liberals and Democratic bloggers" for telling President Bush to shove off at a White House reception for new members of Congress. (Apparently, he had long been a folk hero to Shear, Tim Craig, and the editors of the Post.)

The headline characterized Webb’s speech as a "Blunt Challenge to Bush." Post editors also liked the words "aggressive" and "forceful," and a "blunt" manner that won voters’ hearts. There was no notion anywhere in the story that as Bush honored "Madame Speaker" and offered his olive branch (and the wallets of taxpayers) to the Democrats, that Webb responded to bipartisan overtures by slapping Bush around. Webb and a praising Harry Reid were the only sources in the story. Shear began:

Why isn't Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who first broke the "fauxtography" scandal out of Lebanon, among Time's "digital democracy" change agents?

After looking at the weak collection of candidates available to vote for as Time's Person of the Year last week (based on what they did in 2006, which wasn't much), I wrote:

Perhaps YouTube, online forums, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and online media should be the Thing of the Year: The Shadow Media. Of course, Time would be writing about its own likely eventual demise, but it would fit.

That's essentially what Time has done in its mostly (in my opinion) good decision to name "You" as Person of the Year:

..... for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Time named as "You" everyone trying to influence the world just a bit from their keyboard. That would include, to a miniscule degree, yours truly, and, again of course, many people who are reading this post.

Oh-so-predictably, two of the three "hard-news" members of the magazine's "15 citizens of the digital democracy" are influencers from the left side; none are from the right -- sorry, libs, a milblogger is not presumptively "conservative" (direct links may not work unless you have already visited Time's web site):

What’s the best way to cover the story that the incoming Democratic House Intelligence Chairman flunked a reporter’s current events quiz? Well, if you’re the producers of CNN’s "American Morning," you devote five minutes to the subject and spend half the time discussing examples of Republicans flubbing such quizzes. Reporter Bob Franken filed two reports for the Tuesday edition of "American Morning" and seemed downright embarrassed to be reporting the fact that Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes incorrectly responded to a correspondent’s question of who, Shiite or Sunni, primarily comprise al-Qaeda. (Reyes believed the answer to be Shiites.) Franken alternately asserted that the House member must now be aware of "snarky reporters," "treacherous reporters" and claimed that Reyes had been given a "rude welcome." Perhaps to make up for even mentioning the subject, the CNN reporter spent two and a half minutes, out of a combined five total, discussing Republican goofs. At 7:15am, co-host Soledad O’Brien introduced Franken, and set the "we-don’t-want-to-cover-this" tone:

Soledad O’Brien: "In Washington, D.C., Democrats are getting a little taste of what it's like to be in charge on Capitol Hill. Along with the perks of power comes the gotcha moments. The incoming House Intelligence Chairman is the current victim as he flunks an important test. ‘American Morning’s Bob Franken live in Washington for us this morning with details. Good morning."

Proving he's moving on with post-Senate life, George Allen gave an interview to his journalistic tormentor, Michael C. Shear of the WashPost, but Shear plays it cute in Saturday's paper when he pretends not to know who the "referee" is when Allen suggests he was wronged by the refs (including the Post, I have zero doubt):

He declined to talk specifically about the controversies that turned what was supposed to be his warm-up for a presidential campaign into a losing bid to hold on to his Senate seat. "You can't brood and dwell" on the loss, he said.

But it's clear -- especially from the football analogies he uses frequently to describe the sudden turn in his political life -- that Allen regrets the mistakes he and his campaign staff made during the past several months.

George Will turned heads yesterday with a brutal column on Senator-Elect Jim Webb, scouring him for being rude to President Bush at a reception, and then -- in a critique sure to outrage Webb, the literary lion in his own mind -- assaults Webb's hyperbolic use of English, as in saying the rich are "infinitely" richer than the poor. Will proclaimed Webb is a "subtraction" from civility. But perhaps Will should have used a disclaimer: before the election, Will aided this "subtraction" by scouring Sen. George Allen (he "makes no secret of finding life as a senator tedious") in a Post column seven days before the election. As with the Weekly Standard and their George Allen-bashing cover this fall, when you help make the “Macaca majority,” then you should look in the mirror before despairing over the man you helped usher in.

It's a competitive bout of conservative-bashing out of the Michael Richards N-word rant at the Laugh Factory. Newsweek had two columns from black staffers, both mentioning George Allen and "Macaca." Time just had one, by the white TV critic James Poniewozik, but in referring to Richards, Mel Gibson, and the canceled O.J. Simpson special, he works in Allen, the RNC Harold-Ford-mocking ad, and Rush Limbaugh's alleged hate for Michael J. Fox:

All this followed an election whose lowlights were the macaca incident, an ad playing off miscegenation fears and a radio host mocking a disabled man. It's as if the U.S. were experiencing collective Tourette's, regurgitating decades of dutifully sublimated hate--Borat, with real people. As disturbing as the bigotry was the role of the people expressing it. Politicians and entertainers, after all, succeed by knowing our hearts and minds. We are, in a real way, implicated in their achievement and their disgrace. So you'd think this explosion of public ugliness might spur some kind of national soul searching. Did we somehow encourage their bigotry, by ignoring softer forms of it in our pop culture? Did they think on some level, conscious or not, that they spoke for us? Were they right?

The Michael Richards N-word outburst at the Laugh Factory drew not one, but two columns in Newsweek from black staffers. Both praised praising society for coming to the point of outrage over such remarks. Both mildly mocked the obligatory "Kramer" trip to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (while not mocking Sharpton and Jackson). Both revisited a long history of racism. Ellis Cose recalled a South African woman who was beaten, raped, subjected to electric shocks, and strangled within an inch of her life. Raina Kelley went big-picture: "The politics of black and white really began 400 years ago, when, in 1619, Virginia settlers took ownership of slaves from a Dutch man-of-war." And both worked in George Allen’s Macaca remark (only one worked in the RNC ad against Playboy-party man Harold Ford.)

Over at the DNC's official blog, Tracy Russo thought he'd found another Macaca moment:

If a Democratic uttered something even close to this the media would be all over it like white on rice:

“White rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” partly cost GOPers their cong. majorities, Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) told fellow Republicans today. And Putnam, seeking the post of GOP conference chair, chided ex-Chair J.C. Watts (R-OK) for ruining the conference’s ability to serve its members.

Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks.

Wednesday's opinion section of The Washington Post carries a piece by Post columnist Eugene Robinson, a former Post reporter and editor of the Style section. Like clockwork, like reporter Paul Farhi yesterday, Robinson merges Michael "Kramer" Richards screaming the N-word at a black heckler with defeated Sen. George Allen's "Macaca" reference, alongside Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rant:

Look at the two celebrity blow-ups together, and maybe throw in Sen. George Allen's "macaca" moment, too. One thing they teach us is that there are no unguarded moments anymore. Richards's outburst was filmed by someone with a tiny digital camera, Allen's by a young man with a video camera. Footage of their indiscretions and facsimiles of Gibson's drunken-driving police report were disseminated to the world within hours via the Internet. You can't even run anymore, much less hide.

The Washington Post just cannot leave "macaca" alone. In the middle of today's article about the racist N-word-screaming outburst of former Seinfeld star Michael Richards, and how it might ruin his career (such as it is), reporter Paul Farhi once again highlights the Post obsession/achievement:

"Other prominent people, such as Mel Gibson and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), have inflicted career-threatening wounds by making racially insensitive remarks in recent months."

I don't think it's fair to compare "macaca" to screaming the N-word at a heckler. But the Post has tried very hard to make the two words mean exactly the same thing, and they're not letting up, even after they defeated Allen:

This past week saw The Washington Post ask a classically liberal question: Is America more racist or sexist?

Following the lead of this major paper, ABC’s Diane Sawyer asked the same question, adding a surreptitious angle. She wondered, "Is the nation, secretly, I guess, more racist or more sexist?"

The "Good Morning America" host wasn’t through, however. On Tuesday, she offered the query again. This time, Sawyer added a new spin, "secret genderism." The recipient of the question, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, readily agreed. America is guilty, she asserted, it just isn’t "very secret."

Speaking of The Washington Post, ever wonder how many times the paper mentioned "macaca?" According to MRC President Brent Bozell, the paper featured the phrase no less then 112 times!

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann absurdly linked domestic terrorism to "right-wing blogs."

While Olbermann slimed conservatives, CNN labeled the current low gas prices "a recovery." Why, just a few weeks ago, the falling costs represented a link between "Big Oil" and the GOP. What a difference an election makes!