Post-Gazette Editorial – 8/18/06

This page was last updated on August 19, 2006.

Open mouth, insert foot / Va. senator shows why he shouldn’t be president; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; August 18, 2006.

This editorial shows the PG is either deathly afraid of Sen. Allen or it was hard up for a topic. If you’ve seen the video of the non-incident, you know the editorial misrepresents it. If you haven’t, a transcript – from a liberal leaning website – of Sen. Allen’s relevant comments shown below shows what I mean.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“A potential presidential candidate for 2008, George Allen, a Republican senator from Virginia, has probably already eliminated himself from consideration for national office with a racist remark he made in a speech last week.

“Even though America is still 27 months out from the 2008 elections, the race is nonetheless on, first within both major parties and second between the two parties. There are first the old, too familiar faces -- on the Republican side, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as examples. On the Democratic side there are Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts considering another run and perhaps even global warming movie star Al Gore of the 2000 debacle.

“Then there are the new faces. One of these is -- or perhaps, was -- Virginia Sen. and former Gov. George Allen. Mr. Allen probably, in effect, took himself out of any race for national office Friday in a speech before an almost entirely white audience in the small town of Breaks, Va., when he called an Indian-American cameraman in the audience ‘Macaca’ and mockingly ‘welcomed’ him to America.”

[RWC] Here is the transcript I referred to above.

“All right friends we’re gonna run this campaign on positive constructive ideas and its important that we motivate and inspire people for something. This fella here, over here, with the, the yellow shirt, Makaka, or what ever his name is, he’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere and it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia and he’s having it on film. And it’s great to have ya here. And ya show it to your opponent because he’s never been there and probably will never come. So it’s good for you to see what it’s like out here in the real world. Rather than living inside the beltway. Or… His opponent actually right now is with a bunch of Hollywood movie moguls. We care about fact not fiction. So welcome. Let’ give a welcome to (slight pause) Makaka here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia. All right friends we’re in the midst of a war on terror …”

Here’s what we have. Sen. Allen is pointing out a difference between his campaign and that of his opponent. That is, Sen. Allen is talking with people throughout Virginia while his opponent is allegedly concentrating on gaining the support of career politicians (the “inside the beltway” comment) and Hollywood celebrities. Sen. Allen has some fun and points out his opponent has assigned a campaign worker (Mr. Sidarth) to shadow and videotape the Allen campaign. When he “‘welcomed’ him [Sidarth] to America” and “the real world of Virginia,” it’s clear Mr. Allen meant welcome to the real America, not the America represented by career politicians and Hollywood. That’s why the PG didn’t provide the full context or quote.

“The cameraman, S.R. Sidarth, was videotaping Mr. Allen’s speech for his Democratic opponent in the Virginia senatorial race, former Secretary of the Navy James Webb. Mr. Sidarth was born in Fairfax County, Va. Mr. Allen referred to him as ‘Macaca.’ Macaca is a genus of monkey found widely in Asia. It is also a very rude racial term in French (‘macaque,’ meaning ‘monkey’) that white racists and colonialists in Africa use to refer scornfully to Africans.”

[RWC] Perhaps I led a sheltered life, but I’m not up on racial slurs or even everyday swear words in any language but English. Assuming macaca is a racial slur, are we to assume Americans are up to date on vulgarities in foreign languages?

Regarding macaca being a genus of monkey, I have to confess I was ignorant of that fact as well. I guess we’re to assume Mr. Allen is not only a foreign language expert, but he’s also a monkey expert.

“Mr. Allen apologized, said that he did not know all of that and that he didn’t mean to insult Mr. Sidarth. One can choose to believe that, or not believe it. In any case, what is perfectly clear is that Mr. Allen is definitely not presidential or vice-presidential material.”

[RWC] If Mr. Allen is such a racist, why didn’t the editorial provide us with an extensive list of Mr. Allen’s transgressions in this area? After all, Mr. Allen has been in the public spotlight for a long time as a governor and senator.

When the PG says, “what is perfectly clear is that Mr. Allen is definitely not presidential or vice-presidential material,” it really means, “what is perfectly clear is that Mr. Allen is a legitimate candidate so we need to start our character assassination work immediately if we’re to take his Senate seat in 2006 and stop him from running for president in 2008.”

“Whether the voters of Virginia consider Mr. Allen to be senatorial material when he speaks and perhaps thinks like that will be revealed at the polls in November. We would have to hope they do not.”

[RWC] If the PG believes Mr. Allen should be through, what about some prominent Democrats? Here are some examples of racial insensitivity by Democrats completely ignored by the PG. I searched the PG website and found not one editorial about these incidents.

· In a bit of stereotyping on January 3, 2004, during a prepared speech presumed presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) preceded a Ghandi quote by saying, “He ran a gas station down in St. Louis.”

· In a bit of stereotyping on June 17, 2006, presumed presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent ... I’m not joking.”

· During a March 4, 2001, TV interview, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) said, “There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I’m going to use that word.”

Other than these folks have a “D” after their names, what’s the difference between them and Mr. Allen? These three people clearly meant what they said and they said it in plain English. In the case of Mr. Allen, the PG and its allies had to go to foreign languages and mammal genera to turn a comment into a racial slur.