For all the bad, horrible, miserable, painful things that have happened to George Allen these last few weeks, you’ve gotta figure that ads like this have to hurt the most.
And Giuliani, who offered these encouraging words for the Virginia Senator:
“You can take somebody’s career and you can do all kinds of things with it, you can spin it one way or another,#quot; Giuliani said during a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., campaign stop on behalf of Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., who is also seeking re-election.
“But I believe Sen. Allen is a good leader. I also believe he’s going to be elected by the people of Virginia. They know the great work he’s done for them as a governor and a senator, and they really appreciate it.”
Giuliani added, “Sen. Allen has been a very, very effective leader. First of all, he’s a good friend of mine. And I’ve known Sen. Allen a long time. He’s been a great governor, a great senator, and you know, these things happen in campaigns, the focus gets on criticizing [a candidate] and finding everything wrong with them.
There you have McCain, who for all his problems with the base still has a good deal of liberal and moderate street cred, vouching for George Allen in a television ad run by Allen’s campaign. The same Allen campaign that would gladly cut McCain to pieces come November 8th. I’m interested to know what the strategy is here. Is it to flush the frontrunners into an Allen lovefest this year, and make them look like craven hypocrites when they attack him next? Or is it the law of the jungle — doing what you need to do to survive, the Presidency be damned?
More likely it’s the latter. If so, this is a pretty tacit acknowledgment by Allen that he’s nowhere near the level of a McCain or Giuliani, which we all knew, but it’s kind of sad to see him admit it. Did Mitt Romney eschew a tough re-election battle to avoid having to resort to embarrassing moments like this?
I strongly support Senator Allen for re-election and hope he serves a full six year term. He’s a voice for common sense in a Senate compromised by the preening likes of McCain, Graham, and of late, Allen’s colleague John Warner. It’s a shame that labels like “straight talk” and “maverick” only get applied when you’re dissenting to the left, and not challenging the conventional wisdom from the right, as Allen often does. But seeing him elevate two of his prime opponents above himself is a pretty remarkable sight.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Rudy blogger
Your constant attacks on McCain are getting rather old.. Two months ago, John McCain was in Virginia campaigning for George Allen….. John McCain is a Republican .. He wants a Republican majority in the U S Senate.
I know you have special privileges from this board, but back off the McCain, Romney attacks.. That is not w
That is not what Rudy G is about…
You cant burn down the house , so you can have the house….
September 28th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
The only thing that will rescue Allen is the fact that Webb is an even worse candidate and reportedly no better when it comes to the issue of racial insensitivity and bigotry.
I can see McCain supporting a colleague, it is almost required. But I would think Giuliani needs to be very, very careful here since he is already being tagged with the Bernie Kerik issue. One more and Giuliani is going to be open to criticism for his judgment about people.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Rb
These exercises remind me of Lott and Dodd bragging on a dying Strom Thurmond.
Mike
September 28th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
I think there’s a very important angle here that’s not being talked about, and that is that with Allen’s presidential hopes likely dashed, there are a lot of GOP primary voters with an affinity for Allen that will be looking for a new candidate. I think that both McCain and Giuliani are playing the oldest and most basic form of politics: they scratch Allen’s back now, and when Allen’s 2008 money men all forget his phone number on Nov. 8th, both McCain and Rudy come back for Allen’s support — and his supporters. Pretty clever; that’s what I would do anyway.
Also, re: Rudy, I don’t think there’s anything that Rudy said that could harm him, even if all the charges against Allen are somehow proven true. A person can be a good public official and have bad moral fiber. Mussolini made the trains run on time, as the story goes. All Rudy said was that Allen does his job well. I think that’s an objective truth regardless of what turns out to be in Allen’s heart, which we may
never find out.
September 29th, 2006 at 12:15 am
agree with daveG
and btw, I saw nothing wromg with trying to put asmile on strom’s face in his last days
September 29th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Mes Confrères:
I agree completely with Gamecock and Oklahoma Pol. I agree 95% with DaveG; the “other” 5% being the crack about “bad moral fiber”. I think Republius has gone beyond the pale, as he did yesterday, even more egregiously. He owes George Allen a serious apology!
Stipulated: George Allen acted like an obnoxious Jerk in college. He also acted like an obnoxious Jerk in the “Macaca” incident. That said, it is, in my view, simply beyond the pale, to invoke the whole painful American legacy of Slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Separate but Equal, and Segregation, every time someone acts like a Jerk toward someons else, and even calls him names. This is particularly so where, as in the csae of “Macaca”, the specific name ued, whatever it may or may not mean in French Algeria, has never, ever, ever, been understood as a “racial epithet” in the American context.
Moreover, on yet another level, blithely linking George Allen to Bernie Kerik is shameful, if not defamatory. Bernie kerik has pled guilty to actual crimes. Is Republius calling George Allen a criminal? If so, he outght to face George in a court of law. At a minimum, he should seriously apologise!
The Civil Rights movement was a shining moment in American history, and its legacy continues today, though I do believe we are now down to the “tweaking” and the “fine tuning”. I am the descendant of slave owners, and I take seriously the dream of Martin Luther King when he looked to the day when the children of the slave and the children of the slave owner would sit down together at the table of friendship and brotherhood! Jerk or not, George Allen has demonstrated in a 23 year political career that he also takes that dream seriously. Republius absolutely betrays that dream when he uses the excuse of “Macaca” to invite all the bad legacy to come gushing back in.
Finally, at the risk of being overly prolix, I would like to reproduce for you all here my posting of yesterday on “Run Rudy Run” (http://lutherhardy.blogspot.com/), becaues I think it is pointedly relevant to the attitude of Republius in this matter, though not as much so as my remarks above:
“SAND BOX BEHAVIOUR!
“I commend to you all for your consideration, David Brooks’ column on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, today, Thursday, 28 September 2006, entitled: “The Grand Delusion”. I am not, however, reproducing here the entire column, because I want to emphasize as strongly as I can, the gist thereof, as follows:
‘If we lived in a serious political culture, we’d be discussing what we’ve learned from Iraq and how to proceed. Instead, all of Washington is involved in a juvenile game of gotcha. Bill Clinton is fighting about what did or didn’t happen 10 years ago. The White House is still exaggerating the positive. Democratic senators purr like happy kittens as retired generals slam Donald Rumsfeld, and then stop up their ears when those same generals call for more troops and a longer war.
‘Voters now confront a Republican Party that understands the breadth of the threat but has bungled the central campaign, and a Democratic Party that is quick to criticize but lacks an understanding of the jihadists and a strategy for confronting them.
‘Worse, more and more people are falling for the Grand Delusion – the notion that if we just leave the extremists alone, they will leave us alone. On the right, some believe that if we just stop this Wilsonian madness of trying to introduce democracy into the Arab world, we can return to an age of stability and balance. On the left, many people can’t seem to fathom an enemy the U.S. isn’t somehow responsible for. Others think the entire threat has been exaggerated by Karl Rove for the sake of political scaremongering.’
“In those three short paragraphs, Brooks has absolutely skewered the current American political culture, as well as or better than I have ever seen it done. Moreover, this same syndrome that Brooks identifies is playing itself out in Virginia, where the entire substance of one of the most important Senate races in the country has degenerated into little more than whether or not George Allen acted like a jackass in college, some thirty-five years ago! As one of my colleagues puts it: “If we kicked everyone out of government who acted like a jackass in college, Capitol Hill would be a ghost town!”
“In addition, I fear strongly that in 2008, we will run the risk of giving up on the absolutely indispensable Leadership of Rudy Giuliani because – take your pick – he has been married three times, he favoured gun-control in New York City, he is “tarred†by his association with the “now disgraced†Bernie Kerik, he is in favour of civil-unions, he bunked-in with a gay couple for a time, etc., etc., etc.!
“It may be true that “God loves foolsâ€, and that is why America continues to prosper, but in my judgment, we will be worse that fools if we continue with our sand-box behaviour in the face of the enemies arrayed against us. If I had to “sum-up†Rudy’s greatest appeal for me, “in-ten-words-or-lessâ€, it would be: Rudy is an adult, and that’s what we children need!”
September 29th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I, for one, am keeping a very close eye on where top Allen’s top advisers, Mary Matalin and Ed Gillespie, wind up. I view Gillespie as one of th smartest Republican operatives in the game today (along with Mehlman and Rove). Now in light of McCain and Rudy serving to bolster the Allen campaign, it’ll be interesting to see what happens if Allen does manage to be re-elected.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Also, RudyBlogger, do you need to make such gratuitous swipes at McCain in every single post of yours? I know loathe him, but a little decency would be in order. It is getting incredibly tiresome.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Just for the record, my comment about Allen’s moral fiber was conditioned on some sort of future revelation that the worst about Allen is indeed true. If that were the case, and it probably won’t be, I think most people would indeed question Allen’s moral fiber. My point was simply that even if Allen’s character was utterly destroyed via objective facts, Rudy’s commentary on Allen’s job performance would remain true. Allen was a good congressman, a good governor, and a good senator, despite what the truth ends up being regarding his overall character.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
LJ and Oklahoma Pol:
One of the great things about R4’08 is that supporters of various campaigns can get on here and have spirited exchanges about the merits of particular candidates. In my case, that means making the case for Rudy Giuliani. Lately, I’ve posted to R4’08 on other matters in an effort to cover other ’08 developments that haven’t been covered on the front page. This seems to have elicited a viscerally negative response from the both of you.
Somehow, the discussion *always* seems to come back to subtle digs at McCain, perceived or otherwise. In fact, I think the above post is a bigger slam on Allen than anyone, but since people seem to have given up on him, I guess no one cares about that. In fact, this post does something most unusual for me: it elevates McCain to the level of my candidate Giuliani. Why are McCain supporters so insulted? Because I said he has liberal and moderate street cred? Well, it’s true — his supporters would cite his crossover appeal. Or talking about the nature of how people get labeled “maverick” or “straight talkers?” Show me where I’m wrong — I rarely see the likes of Coburn, Pence, and Blackburn elevated in the media when they dissent from the party line on spending and immigration. Guys, I don’t think I was being anything other than analytical here.
As for the press release post, if you’re going to attack me for anything, attack me for not being funny. Sometimes (attempted) humor needs to be used to illustrate an obvious point. BTW, the same thing could essentially have been written about Mitt Romney.
For trying to broaden the discussion a bit and talk about other candidates, I suddenly get dumped on. Why now?
So, does the post now at the top of R4’08 not meet with your approval? Is there some hidden, nasty, vicious smear at McCain hidden deep in between the lines?
September 29th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
RudyBlogger,
What annoyed me was this line: “He’s a voice for common sense in a Senate compromised by the preening likes of McCain, Graham, and of late, Allen’s colleague John Warner.” Even as you “elevate” McCain to Giuliani’s level, you had to get that swipe in. I understand that the nature of this site to to push a particular candidate, yours is Rudy, mine is McCain. There is a lot I don’t like about Rudy, but I don’t take shots at him when discussing issues on this site. And it’s not just me and Oklahoma that see this, Republius, who I don’t think is a McCain supporter, has also commented on this recently as well.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
LJ,
It’s called a debate. Implicit in inviting a free-for-all on the merits of a particular candidate is inviting a free-for-all on the demerits of the others. I don’t see how you can have honest debate without either. I’ve never suggested that you or anyone else don’t have the right to attack Giuliani on this board. I would prefer you didn’t for selfish reasons, but it’s completely unrealistic for me to ask that of you.
September 29th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
LJ seems not to understand what I have been writing.
I said that Mayor Giuliani needs to be careful in supporting Senator Allen. The Mayor is being criticized for suporting Bernie Kerik for Homeland Security Secretary and for supporting Ralph Reed for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. If more Allen transgressions arise there is a risk to the Mayor that his judgment will be questioned.
As to Senator Allen, it is he and not me who invoked the awful legacy of the past with his office artifacts that have included a Confederate flag and a noose, though admittedly it was awhile ago. And since we all seem to agree that the macaca incident was horrible, it simply makes me wonder if Senator Allen has grown as an adult from the person who eyewitnesses say used the term “nigger” extensively in college.
I see no evidence that Senator Allen has purged his heart of such racial animus. Taking two weeks to apologize for the macaca incident and flat out denying with no apology his past use of the term “nigger” does not sound to me like someone who has improved much from being the college jerk that everyone stipulates he was.
I am all for the GOP, but more for decency, humility, and respect. I do not join my fellow GOPers who react to incidents like that of Senator Allen, Senator Lott, and Senator Burns in blaming left-wing media bias. Maybe if an elected Republican of color indicates they believe Senator Allen is being railroaded I will have some sympathy. But for now all I see are a bunch of white GOPers downplaying racial insensitivity and racism. And it disgusts me to no end.
September 30th, 2006 at 11:08 am
DaveG: Thank you for that clarification. In light thereof, I revise my earlier remarks to say that I completely agree with you.
Rudyblogger: I agree with you completely as well! I support Rudy, I would assert, as passionately as anyone I know. See “Run Rudy Run” (http://lutherhardy.blogspot.com/). At the same time, I do not harbor the sort of visceral animosity toward John McCain that this year’s polling appears to have uncovered among the Republican “Base”. Just as I disagree with his original position on the “detainee” bill, I respect Sen. McCain thoroughly as a former POW himself, a genuine war hero, and an honourable man. If Rudy is somehow “not to be”, this Country would be very lucky to come away from the fracas of 2006-08, with John McCain as its President.
Republius: Your analysis of George Allen continues to be curious at best and disengenuous at worst. At the same time you defend your own invocation of the terrible legacy of the past by invoking “Tu quoque” as to George, you concede that this “was awhile ago”. You leap to link the term “Macaca” — which may or may not, depending entirely upon context, have a “racial” meaining in another language and culture — with an unambiguous racial slur in the American context. Indeed, you are, as far as I have seen, the first public commentator actually to use the term “nigger” when referring to George’s alleged transactions from 35 years ago, where everyone else, to the best of my knowledge, has employed the standard euphemism: “the ‘N’ word”, all the while not even asserting any knowlede of your own. Even Larry Sabotage did not feel so emboldened as to behave thusly! Is it your intent that, by actually seeing the term “nigger” in print, your audience will be so emotionally revulsed as to pass over the flaws in you own argument?
You pointedly make no mention of George’s actual 23-year record in politics, but conclude — based upon what, I know not — that George has not “purged his heart of . . . racial animus”. In this, you sound like nothing so much as Sean Penn telling Larry King, with reference to Mel Gibson, that there is “a problem with his thinking”. Shall we now invite the “Liberal Thought Police” into internal Rebublican political dialogue?
You call for a “an elected Republican of color” to come to George’s defense at the same time you ingnore the common cause he has made with John Lewis and others in sponsoring actual legislation. I have never supported George for President, and I do not intend to start now. Six weeks ago, I was at best a nominal supporter of George for re-election. True, the left-wing media initially brought me vociferously to his defense, but I fob nothing off on the media in this instance. I address you directly, and I say J’accuse! It appears to me that you are wrestling with your own demons and dumping the whole thing on George Allen. I stand by what I said yesterday, YOU owe George Allen a serious apology!
PS: Should DaveG’s potential scenario indeed come to pass, I shall myself retract and apologise to Republius. Given the immediacy of the race for control of the Senate, however, there is no time now to “wait and see”.
September 30th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Mes Confrères:
Please forgive me! I have posted the following excerpt elsewhere as part of a larger posting, but in light of my comments above, I think it will be helpful to re-post it here so as to present in one place my more-or-less complete exegisis of the term “Macaca”:
Apropos of the “macaca†incident, I must tell you that I speak French, my “significant other†of 23 years standing is French, I correspond regularly with Frenchmen in French, and “many moons ago†I actually dipped my toe into the fundraising side of French politics. As a result, I was, I dare say, one of the few people following George’s campaign who was actually, albeit vaguely, familiar with the term “Macaca†before George used it. With that background, I reproduce for you below [part of] the English text of an e-mail communication that I sent to certain Virginia frinds in the wake of the “macaca†incident, and just after the “Jewish†incident:
[The Allen/Webb race gets] Weirder still: . . . Apropos of the “Macaca†incident, I have done some “thorough investigating†and have “discovered†that “Macaca†is in fact the name of the genus of the Rhesus Macaque, which is a species of monkey existing from North Africa to Japan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaca) In the French/Algerian patois, with which Mrs. Allen, Sr., was undoubtedly familiar – indeed it may even be considered her native language — both terms — “Macaca†and “Macaque†— are commonly used to refer to a “dumb†or “silly” person, an “idiotâ€, in much the same way we in English use the terms “monkey”, “ape†or “baboonâ€. Any “racial content†is derived solely from context. Indeed, some mothers even use it as a term of endearment for their rambunctious children, e.g., “You’re just my little monkey, aren’t youâ€!
September 30th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Luther, the person who needs to apologize is Senator Allen, at a minimum, for being insensitivity. I love how so many of the sons of the south implicitly defend terms like macaca and nigger, and defend hoisting artifacts like the Confederate flag and nooses conspicuously.
I am no more impressed that Senator Allen has worked with Congressman Lewis than I am with Lyndon B. Johnson pushing civil rights legislation. Recently released audiotapes indicated where the heart of LBJ was on racial matters; he was simply pushing an agenda for political reasons and retained plenty of racial animus.
When I see evidence that someone sees beyond color and values character first, then I will be impressed. Senator Allen has not convinced me.
October 1st, 2006 at 10:57 am
Dear Sirs/Mesdames:
That’s it; I have nothing more to say. Mr. “Republius” is obviously beyond reason, and I intend to take no further notice of him. He is certainly no friend of George Allen, and apparently at best a fair-weather friend of the Republican Party. Even I know better than to go to a bull fight and try to reason with the bull.
Before I actually do move on, however, I must congratulate Mr. Republius. He has managed to pre-figure, if not actually to inspire, the “take” of The New York Times on George Allen. In the “Week in Review” section of today’s paper, Sunday, 01 October 2006, the “take” on George is that “questions about [his] racial sensitivity” are still being “kept alive”, sounding eerily like Mr. Republius’s failure to be convinced that George has “purged his heart of . . . racial animusâ€, which he said this past week. I don’t remember exactly when.
At least in future, should I feel the necessity to inform myself on the politically-correct-New-York-Times-Liberal-thought-police view of the world, I won’t have to enrich the Times Company by some $11.00 per week, I can simply visit this web site for free and read the postings of Mr. Republius.
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 am
I am open to the possibility that I am wrong about Senator Allen. But nothing I have seen so far convinces me so. And I think it does the Republican Party long-term harm when failing to take evidence of racial insensitivity by their elected officials and candidates seriously.
The ad hominem attack from Luther would be funny if it wasn’t so ludicrous. If taking a position against racial insensitivity and bigotry is liberal, which I vehemently deny, then what would that make conservatives? The logic is untenable for Republicans. I have worked with and for some of the most conservative members of Congress, which makes my conservative and Republican credentials as genuine as anyone else’s, if not more so.
There is a name for the kind of virulent position being taken by those who will not allow any criticism of Senator Allen whatsoever. And it is exactly the source of the problem we are dealing with here.
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:13 am
Messieurs/dames:
I know I said that I would take no further notice of Mr. Republius, but, mea maxima culpa, I find myself to be unable, however, not to respond to his latest outrage against sanity and rhetoric. I since hope that after this, Deus vult, Deus vult, that I prove worthy of my pledge!
Mr. Republius’s latest rhetorical substitute for reasoned argument is to accuse me of launching an ad hominem attack against him. Indeed, only a moment’s reflection demonstrates that this is logically impossible. I in fact know NOTHING about the man (homo, hominis; l’homme; hombre; l’uomo; der Mensch) to, toward, or against whom (ad eum) I might have directed such an “attack”. In fact, the ONLY thing I know at all about Mr. Republius is the view he has chosen to express in this space, and which I have chose to analyse. Even if one chooses to call my analysis “an attack” (close call), it must of necessity have been directed against his expressed views and not against the “man” himself, here represented ONLY by a nom de plume (ou nom de guerre?). “C’est ma pièce qu’ils judgent, pas moi!” – Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.
Moreover, as I say, to accuse me of an “ad hominem” attack is itself an evasive rhetorical device. When Mr. Republius’s views with respect to George Allen are subjected to a rigorous analysis, absent evasive rhetorical devices, they are, in my view, shown to form a corpus of opinion, with respect to the specific issue of “Race” in the American context, that has no place in the Republican Party, and indeed no place in civilised discourse of any kind. This conclusion was, indeed, the moral basis of pledge, here broken, to take no further notice of Mr. Republius.
First, lets take the issue of “race in the American context” head on. When this specific debate began, it was about whether or not George Allen was “racially insensitive”, i.e., acted like a jackass, when he used the term “Macaca” to refer to a young Virginian of Indian ancestry. The answer to that is pretty clearly “yes”. George acted like a jackass. Given that control of the Senate potentially hangs in the balance, however, the political foes arrayed against George were not about to let the matter rest there, and let voters make of it what they would.
Next we had several “college classmates” of George surface to claim that, some 30-35 years ago, George used the “N word”, perhaps more than on the odd occasion — as indeed Jim Webb, himself an honourable man, more-or-less “confessed to having done”, as indeed any native Southerner over a certain age, comme moi, has almost certainly done. Others of George’s ancien amis claimed that this claim about George was false. Supposed “neutral political observer” Larry Sabotage chimed in, on national cable television, to say that he “knew for a fact” that the allegations against George were true. The very next day, Mr. Sabotage admitted to having no personal knowledge of these events. [Here I admit, mea culpa, I descended into an "ad hominem attack" on Mr. Sabotage when I said that he was "acting out" on a "nerd-jock" grudge against George from college day. I offer no apology! I have know-known-of Mr. Sabotage for at least 32 years, and he has irritated the absolute bejeesus out of me for all that time!]
Here I joined the fray about George. My initial goal was to defend him, and his Senate seat, from what I saw as unfair attacks against him as a racist, from 30-35 years ago — all stemming from the “Macaca” incident, and all trying to turn that incident into the ad hominem assessment of George that he is today a racist. Here, enter Mr. Republius.
My charges: His postings on this issue contain virtually no analysis, substituting rhetorical device instead. They demonstrate an obsession with race and are insulting to Southerners as a group, constituting themselves an “ad hominem attack on that group, with George Allen, et moi, as exemplar. They constitute an advocate’s piece, designed to paint George Allen as a racist, with scant admissible evidence, and ignore directly contradictory evidence. They employ the tactics of the politically correct “Liberal Thought Police”, and echo the assessments of The New York Times. They traduce acceptable norms of civil discourse when actual facts and analysis fail. Specifications to wit:
1. For the specifications of my charge about The New York Times, and the politically correct Liberal Thought Police, see, my penultimate and next before postings on this issue.
2. When unable to present any facts in support of his conclusion that George Allen had not “purged his heart . . . of racial animus”, he violated the currently accepted norms of euphemism and employed the actual word “nigger”, rather than “the ‘N’ word”. When he was called on this, he used it again, this time dropping the quotation marks. This was a rhetorical device, using presumed revulsion at the actual sight of the term as a thinly-veiled “ad hominem attack” on George Allen in order to direct the focus of the discourse away form the lack of evidence and analysis. NO ONE, not even Larry Sabotage, has even accused George of using this term in 30-35 years.
3. When all facts, evidence, and argument failed him, he himself engaged in a direct “ad hominem attack” by feigning “surprise” at the willingness of “Sons of the South” (moi inclusif) to “defend racism”. No one in this argument has done that. Every posting on this issue OTHER than those of Mr. Republius has tried through the recitation of fact and analysis applied thereto, to determine whether or not a charge of “racism†could fairly be leveled at George Allen. Moreover, this charge by Mr. Republius was a direct insult, as to which, had it been made in person in a different era, I would have demanded satisfaction. We Southerners are indeed very sensitive – perhaps overly so — to charges of racism, not because of what may or may not actually exist in the South today, but because of the way in which craven Liberals, and their Fellow Travelers on this issue like Mr. Republius, do indeed level this charge as their “ultimate ad hominem attack”, when all else fails.
4. He freely admits that he is “not impressed” by the evidence of concrete, recent, and on-going examples of George’s pointed attempts to build racial harmony and understanding, because he, Mr. Republius has already made up his mind that George’s “heart” is not free of “racial animus”. In this, he links George to Lyndon Johnson — the connection to whom is truly “beyond me” — a politician who left the public stage when George was 16 years old and still in California. I can see and criticise ignoring evidence, but I simply cannot fathom the link to Lyndon Johnson.
Actually, I could go on, but I am now fatigued, as I hope you are as well, at having to spend any more time in the presence of the obsession, odious opinions, false logic, and pseudo analysis that Mr. Republius has displayed on this issue. I shall now, mes Confrères, truly, truly, truly endeavour to fulfill my pledge of yesterday, an take no further notice of the opinions of Mr. Republius!
December 8th, 2006 at 3:12 am
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