George Allen is said to be running in 2012 for the Senate seat he once held and lost to Jim Webb; you may remember he was the favorite of the religious right to be the presidential pick until he famously uttered the "macaca" slur back in 2006.

Well, he's at it again with his racist stereotypes. It's evident how he views the world and the people that live in it.

Washington Post:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night:

“For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

How embarrassing. The fact that it happened a second time is what's illuminating. Let's say he actually forgot that he talked to NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin before, when he previously asked him not if he played sports in college, but what position 'did' he play. But to do it a second time to the same guy shows a pattern, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Allen's apology is not exactly persuasive: It might be natural and unrevealing to ask someone if they played sports -- but to assume that a person played football specifically is just weird and stupid -- unless your framework is that of your classic racial stereotype.

It's now official: He's baaaaackk! George "Macaca" Allen had decided to throw his hat in the ring to win back his Senate seat in 2012.

Former senator George Allen is attempting a comeback six years after the Republican narrowly lost his seat to Democrat Jim Webb, following comments critics said were racist and that became viral on YouTube.

Allen announced he would run for his former seat in 2012 in an email to his supporters and on his website.

"Friends, it's time for an American comeback," Allen said in a video published on his website just before noon on Monday.

"Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate. You know me as someone willing to fight for the people of Virginia and I would like the responsibility to fight for you again."

His video promises to run on a campaign based on what he called "foundational" principles, including reigning in government spending and creating jobs.

Counting on the short memory and lack of critical thinking skills ("Line item veto"? Really? Hasn't that been decided already?) is a hallmark of the American electoral system, but I really hope that Allen is being overly optimistic about the voters' ability to forget this confederate flag-lovin' macaca mouth. And it's not a straight up Dem/Rep race as tea party candidate Jamie Radtke has also indicated she's running for the Republican nod and she's not pulling any punches.

Former Senator George Allen -- the once-leading religious-right candidate eyeing the run for the presidency in 2008, until his "macaca moment" lost him the election and his aspirations -- is said to be running against Sen. Webb in 2012.

Allen, the former U.S. senator and Virginia governor, plans to tell supporters within a week that he is mounting a campaign to retake the Senate seat he lost to Democrat Jim Webb in 2006, according to Politico.

There was no mention of a possible run on Allen's website Monday. But he did post his picks for this past weekend's NFL playoff games. For Allen's sake, we hope his political future fares better than his prognosticating skills. The son of the former Redskins coach went 1-3 in the weekend games, correctly picking only the Green Bay-Atlanta game.

Allen, 58, has already begun to line up key staff members for his 2012 run, according to Politico. Webb beat Allen by only 1 percent (thanks in part to an insensitive comment Allen made at a campaign stop in southwest Virginia) and has sent mixed signals about whether he will seek re-election. But DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor who could be the Democratic nominee if Webb were to bow out, has been telling friends he thinks Webb will run, Politico reported.

The Senator has a very checkered past when it comes to racism.

DOWNLOADS: (899)

PLAYS: (1532)

Embed

(Here's the video)

Flags:

Since there has been a lot of talk about George Allen's fondness for the Confederate flag, I acquired this video that Ryan Lizza writes about.

"It's hard to make out, because the video is fuzzy. The copy I obtained was originally recorded off a television using VHS in 1993 and then transferred to a second tape, further degrading the quality. But, once you know what it is, it makes sense. It sits folded on a bookcase of trophies and bric-a-brac behind George Allen, who is seated at a desk in his home office.

"It's right there next to the fax machine. You can see the red field. You can make out the diagonal blue bar. And you can see what looks like a white star. It is the Confederate flag, and it appears in the very first ad that Allen broadcast in 1993, when he ran for governor..."

Can you guys make it out?

Update: Allen's ad-maker confirmed to TNR that the Confederate flag is there, but denies it was done on purpose.

I for one will welcome back a chance to go up against George Allen, formerly known as Senator Macaca.

A modest proposal: no one displaying the Confederate flag gets to lecture any American about patriotism - ever. Ditto for anyone trafficking in Confederate nostalgia as a political strategy. Of course, that new red, white and blue rule would pose a problem for today's Republican Party. After all, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, the same man who delivered the GOP's response to President Obama's 2010 State of the Union, this week resurrected "Confederate History Month" in Richmond. And to be sure, when it comes to flying the Stars and Bars and talking up secession, nullification and "the war of Yankee aggression," McDonnell has plenty of company among the leading lights of the Republican Party.

Exhuming a ritual buried by his Democratic predecessors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, McDonnell called on Virginians to celebrate the South's failure in the conflict bookended by Sumter and Appomattox, one he deemed "a four year war ... for independence." More shocking still, McDonnell's proclamation ignored the issue of slavery altogether because, he claimed, "I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia." Governor Jim Gilmore's 1999 declaration at least recognized slavery as the cause of the war that killed over 600,000 Americans, a point a humbled General Ulysses Grant made for posterity at Appomattox:

"I felt sad and depressed at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though their cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought."

Sadly, Bob McDonnell is far from alone among Republican leaders past and present reminding Americans that the old times there are not forgotten.

As the health care reform debate reached its climax in March, Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia was among those longing for the days of the ante bellum South. Missing the irony that health care is worst in those reddest of Southern states where Republicans poll best, Broun took to the House floor to show that he was still fighting the Civil War:

"If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States -- the Great War of Yankee Aggression."

If you thought you had heard that outdated term of Dixie revisionist history recently, you did. In February 2009, Missouri Republican Bryan Stevenson took exception to President Obama's support for the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation which codify the reproductive rights protections of Roe v. Wade nationwide:

"What we are dealing with today is the greatest power grab by the federal government since the war of northern aggression."

That expression was also a favorite of former Senate Majority Leader and later Minority Whip (really, you can't make this up) Trent Lott.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1849)

PLAYS: (1856)

Embed

Rush Limbaugh tried to lie about George Allen's racist "macaca" remark that cost him his Senate seat by claiming that it was all made up out of thin air by Democrats trying to destroy him. Yeah, we just knew that Allen was waiting to utter a racial slur and call S.R. Sidarth a type of monkey, and then pounced and took it out of context. How did we do that, RushBo?

That's more lying nonsense, but then he went off on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, saying that what she said was much worse than that. What a guy that Limbaugh. I mean, this is all they have to work with and I thank you. Limbaugh is re-digging a ditch to throw George Allen back into and burying him in the process.

Thanks Media Matters:

LIMBAUGH: So Russ Feingold: A couple of words that Sonia Sotomayor said taken out of context. You mean, like, macaca? George Allen saying macaca -- we heard about that for weeks and months as The Washington Post and the Democrats sought to destroy Allen; he'd been a congressman, a governor, and a senator.

Sotomayor's comments are much worse than macaca; and they're frequent, and they are long-held. You see how this race thing works, folks. If you're a liberal, nothing you say can be held against you."

I think Limbaugh is feeling the heat from DenounciaRush.

Presente Action released this statement today: "Rush Limbaugh has no shame -- launching more racist attacks on Judge Sotomayor during a historic week when her credentials are on full display and our community is beaming with pride. Our elected leaders cannot remain silent in the face of these inflammatory comments polluting the public discourse. We demand that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee denounce Limbaugh's latest remarks immediately."

Allen was thought to be the great right-wing hope to run for president in 2008, but being a racist wasn't very helpful to him now was it? Here's a reminder of what really happened to George 'macaca' Allen via The Situation Room back on Aug 14, 2006.

DOWNLOADS: (1151)

PLAYS: (3303)

Embed

Wow. Talk about really tone deaf moves.

Pam's House Blend:

You just can't make this stuff up. I really didn't think the Allen asshattery of this week's "Americans are not addicted to oil. Americans are addicted to freedom" comment could be topped, but this takes the cake.

Northern Virginia Republicans, realizing they need to improve their appeal among the region's large ethnic population, will stage a "unity" rally Saturday that they say will draw 1,000 people.

Organizers said the annual rally, which has grown in recent years, is particularly significant this year because ethnic minorities represent an increasingly powerful voting bloc that will help decide which presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, wins the state Nov. 4.

...Hyland said he expects as many as 1,000 supporters to turn out for the event at Edison High School, where former senator George Allen and Reps. Tom Davis and Frank R. Wolf are expected to speak. Former Virginia governor James S. Gilmore III is planning to attend, as is a widely known surrogate from McCain's campaign, organizers said.

Exactly what kind of outreach does the GOP think Allen -- the man who gave us the word "Macaca", kept a confederate flag and a noose in his office, hangs out with buddies of a white supremacist group, as well as bragged about stuffing a deer head in an African American family's mailbox -- will be able to do?

The Politico:

The Macaca moment has morphed into an official learning tool for the Republican establishment.

It's right there, on pages 18 and 22 of an Internet guide from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee that its chairman, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), hopes will become scripture for the 2008 candidates.

Always assume you're being recorded, and always record your opponent. The blogs -- oh, scratch that -- the Republican blogs are your friends, so use them for rapid response in good times and bad.

"The paradigmatic example of failure to do so is the 'macaca' moment," reads the guidebook (excerpted here), referring to a remark last year by former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) that was captured on video and sunk his reelection campaign.

And btw, the mainstream media are so, uh, 2006. The first stop for press secretaries, according to the guidebook, should be bloggers who can create "buzz" and inevitably trigger stories in the drippy MSM.

You'll never guess which are the top 5 bloggers to which to go for those Republicans... oh wait, it's probably obvious.

There is a whole world that a certain segment of conservatives live in that actually does not touch on reality at all. A world where museums can be built to show dinosaurs roaming the earth with humans. Where online encyclopedia entries must reflect a conservative world view. Where presidential candidates still have a shot after denying evolution.

This conservative world's newest target is YouTube. That's right. Apparently, cats playing the piano and homemade videos of soap stars and Harry Potter characters to the soundtrack of the latest pop love song are too...shall we say...liberally biased:

The popular video-sharing Web site first debuted "Hillary 1984," which compared Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. to a Orwellian dictator, then-Sen. George Allen's career-altering "macaca" moment and the "I Feel Pretty" video that chided former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' good looks.

But YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also been a favorite target of conservatives, who accuse the site of a liberal bias.

Railing against YouTube, two Republican White House veterans have launched QubeTV as a conservative alternative.

"The 2008 campaign will be dominated by video and in particular by user-generated video," says QubeTV founder Charlie Gerow, a former aide in the Ronald Reagan White House.

"There are a vast array of young conservative activists and operatives out there armed with cell phones or hand-helds that are going to capture the next 'macaca' moment or John Kerry bad joke and put them on Qube TV," says Gerow, whose Pennsylvania strategic media firm, Quantum Communications, created the Web site.

Gerow insists YouTube banned a video by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin about radical Islamists.

Responding to that incident, a statement on the Web site reads: "We fly the conservative flag here at QubeTV, and we will not be about banning or deleting conservatives."

For what it's worth, Michelle Malkin personally has 25 of her videos on YouTube and a site search yields 251 results, so she's hardly underrepresented. But that's just that pesky reality again. It's much more fun to embrace victimhood, even if it's a ridiculous lie.

Give us your impressions. Anything stick out? Anything fall flat? Any good reactions from the gallery? See a resignation letter in Cheney's pocket?

More laughs for Dan Riehl:

Senator Jim Webb is giving the Democratic response to the SOTU this evening. George Allen won't even be at the SOTU tonight.

Update: Anyone find something interesting from the SOTU or the world of spin and wants to make a video, send it to me crooksandliars@gmail.com I may not use it, but I might, Just make sure to give me a hat tip name...You know...maybe Joe Lieberman standing up alone---clapping...

And the man that called it for George Allen (I'm still laughing at that one) is wrong again. Nitpicker explains: "One for the "moonbats"