More on George Allen from TNR's Ryan Lizza

Following up on his devastating story about George Allen's ugly racial history, Ryan Lizza slams Allen again:

Images of Allen are like a Civil War version of Where's Waldo, with the Confederate flag replacing the bespectacled cartoon character. First, as The New Republic reported last week, there's the senior class photo from Palos Verdes High School with Allen wearing a Confederate flag pin ("Pin Prick," May 8). Now we learn that the Confederate flag appears as a decoration in Allen's first statewide ad, even though he has long maintained that the flag did not adorn his home after 1992.

Some conservatives have recently argued that the revelations about Allen's high school photo are irrelevant because the picture is so old. "[I]f we're going to scrutinize people's high school records as we vet them for public office, nobody gets to run," columnist Kathleen Parker wrote last week. But, as revealed by the 1993 campaign ad--as well as the accounts of Allen associates now stepping forward--his embrace of the Confederate flag is even more extensive than tnr previously reported. According to his colleagues, classmates, and published reports, Allen has either displayed the flag--on himself, his car, inside his home--or expressed his enthusiastic approval of the emblem from approximately 1967 to 2000.

In other words, what Allen supporters are trying to whitewash as youthful indiscretions actually mushroomed into a lifelong record of (a) embracing offensive racial symbols and (b) exploiting them politically. Sounds like a great president to me!

Comments

Luc,

If the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, how do you explain the reaction to Judah Benjamin's speech when he proposed that the South have its own Emacipation Proclamtion? The Richmond newspaper responded that if the South freed the slaves, then why even have a Civil War. The Civil War was absolutely about slavery and everyone at the time knew it.

Joe

[Q]

NOTHING to do with slavery? So what did it have to do with? Please tell me what exactly their grievences against the United States were, and don't say vague stuff like "sovereignty." Tell me what "rights" of the south were being violated. Oh, by the way, the Confederate flag is the flag of an enemy of the United States. And I hope it's not a symbol of southern culture, because it stands for treason and slavery. When you take up arms against your country, you are a traitor. If you like America, fly an American flag. But don't fly the flag of a bunch of traitors to America and then try to say you love America.