The National Review editors criticize George Allen for attacking his Democratic opponent Jim Webb over Webb's former reactionary position on women in the military, a position to which the National Review editors still hold, because they fear that Allen's transparently silly attempt to cast himself as a supporter of women's rights may cause some conservative voters to think that Webb still agrees with their reactionary position. Precious.
As to the issue of Allen's using a French North African slur against an Indian-American kid he mistook for an Arab? Eh, that "offended only the perpetually offended." Gold.
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Allen again claimed the word was "just made up." Now, people, this is just not credible. Allen's mother is French Tunisian. "Macacca" is a slur used by French North Africans against Arabs. I'm not implying that George Allen's mother is a racist, just that given her background it is extremely likely that she was familiar with the word, just as it is extremely unlikely that, in struggling to invent an appropriately demeaning nickname for the brown-skinned person who'd been videotaping his speeches, Allen happened to "invent" precisely the term that was used against brown-skinned people in the country where his mother spent her childhood. If someone referred to an African-American as a "kaffir", and, additionally, it turns out that his father grew up in South Africa, how likely do you think it is that he just made up that word on the spot? Come on, on a scale of zero to zero, how likely?
I can't decide whether I'm more perpetually offended by Allen's original use of the slur, or that he thinks anyone is dumb enough to believe his excuse. Oops, sorry conservative base, didn't see you standing there...
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