Salon quotes three former teammates saying George Allen used the word “nigger” frequently in the early 1970s.
Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.
“Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where ‘blacks knew their place,’” said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. “He used the N-word on a regular basis back then.”
A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word “nigger” to describe blacks. “It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used,” the teammate said.
A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word “nigger,” though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. “My impression of him was that he was a racist,” the third teammate said.
AllahPundit thinks Allen is “done, done, done, beyond even the ability of a teary Robert Byrd-esque error-of-my-ways confession to save him.” Mary Katharine Ham has her doubts, both about Salon’s journalistic ethic and the charges themselves. “If he’s such a raving, gall-durned racist, why didn’t all of this come out before and prevent him from being Governor and then Senator”?
They’re both probably right.
The evidence continues to mount that Allen has a strange fascination with the Old South and its customs. It’s hardly a stretch to believe he used the word “nigger” as a college student in the early 1970s. As with James Webb’s rantings against women in the military a few years later, what is shocking now was par for the course at the time (see my TCS Daily article “I Know You Are But What Am I?” for more on that).
Fair or not, however, Allen is now caught in a media meme. The New Republic, Washington Post, Salon, and others all now presume that he’s a Confederate sympathizing racist and every new allegation is treated as corroboration. The fact that most of Allen’s teammates interviewed for the Salon piece disputed the charges or that he has a long record of public life seems not to matter.
Joe Gandelman is right:
[The] assertion by itself wouldn’t be enough to be damaging…if it hadn’t come within the context of (a) the previous statements, (b) the “macaca” incident and Allen and his staff’s varying explanations of why he put his foot in his mouth and (c) the recent flap over him being asked about being partly Jewish and the clumsy answer he gave that created another mouth-induced political wound.
Conversely, since Webb is perceived as a straight shooting war hero–and running as a Good Guy Democrat, no less–various racist and sexist statements and actions are shrugged off as anomolies.
Regardless, it’s hard to see how Allen recovers sufficiently to be a serious presidential contender in 2008. He’ll have an uphill fight just to beat Webb in November now.
UPDATE: Dan Riehl points out that Shelton is a founder of the anti-tobacco group “Tobacco Free For Life,” which gives him a stake in torpedoing pro-tobacco Allen. That doesn’t make him a liar, of course, but it does provide context for the “Why now?” question.
UPDATE: Jon Henke has a lengthy rebuttal to the Salon piece at the Allen Campaign website.
Aside from Salon’s own admission that 16 of the 19 people contacted did not remember any evidence of racism from George Allen — in fact, the seven people who knew Allen well during that time period specifically said that “did not believe he held racist views” — we’ve got statements from a great many former peers of Allen that specifically debunk these charges.
Among the many quotes, it is pointed out that Allen went to UVA because he dad was coaching the Redskins, not because he wanted a place where “coloreds knew their place” (a point that occured to me earlier as well but I failed to mention) and that Shelton had the nickname “Wizard” before Allen joined the team.
It’s a detailed and convincing response, especially when the guy making the one charge that can’t be effectively rebutted (that 16 of 19 people never heard Allen use the “N-word” doesn’t mean the other 3 didn’t) has reason to lie.
As Henke notes, “This Salon story is evidence of the Democratic Party growing comfortable with the ‘Swiftboating’ tactics they’d previously decried.” Unfortunately, we’ve entered an era where no lie or smear is considered out of bounds. Sadly, it’s damned effective. Incendiary charges will stick with some percentage of the public regardless of how swiftly and effectively they’re disproven. And unless the Webb campaign can be directly tied to the smear, there’s really no downside from their perspective.
UPDATE: Steven Taylor pronounces Allen’s 2008 presidential run “Toast.” Can’t say I disagree.
UPDATE: Henke updates his post with a statement from a black teammate of Allen’s.
Statement from Rev. Gary Ham, defensive corner on the University of Virginia football team 1969 thru 1973. Rev. Ham was one of the African-American players on the UVA football team at the time:
“Let me say honestly, that I was not a close acquaintance with Senator Allen during our football days at UVA but I do not recall any language or behavior that was racist in nature.
“I have better recollections of Senator Allen when he was the Governor of VA. Although I disagreed with the position which he took on Martin Luther King Day, I believed him to be a man who was open to dialogue with African-Americans and other minority groups. He did much to promote outreach to poor neighborhoods and communities through faith-based initiatives.”
Not definitive, by any means, since one presumes Allen would have enough sense not to have used the word “nigger” around black teammates. Still, Allen was the starting quarterback for the Cavaliers, so it’s not as if he was some guy on the bench whose demeanor would have gone unnoticed.
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Elsewhere:
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James Joyner, “I Know You Are But What Am I?,” TCS Daily, 19 September 2006.
James Joyner, “YouTube Politics,” 16 August 2006.
Ryan Lizza, “GEORGE ALLEN’S RACE PROBLEM: Pin Prick,” New Republic, 27 April 2006.
