The apparent destruction of the presidential ambitions of Sen. George Allen, R-Va., has been interesting to watch. The story goes several layers deep, and I'll do my best to probe the more interesting, religion-oriented ones in this post. Feel free to post your thoughts on how religion was played in the hundreds of articles written on the politician who has been dubbed the darling of the religious right and a clone of President Bush.
The candidate one would think would benefit the most from Allen's implosion is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, but that remains to be seen. Check out what The Revealer wrote Monday on the issue:
The liberal blogs, Salon, and now the mainstream media (AP) have been making hay out of Allen's bigotry, but the media that matters in this case won't be public. It'll be email. It'll be telephone calls. It'll be the quiet, behind-the-scenes conferencing by Christian Right powerbrokers who are about to pull the rug out from Allen.
Nailing down who pulled, or will pull, the rug out from Allen's presidential hopes is tricky, but one thing is for sure, it was not the mainstream media. As best I can tell, The New Republic (as tmatt likes to say, that right-wing rag to which we link a lot) started it all with a couple of Ryan Lizza articles on April 27 and May 15 that addressed Allen's "race problem." Here we found out that Allen had a long association with the Confederate flag, among other sketchy things.
Then Allen famously uttered "macaca" (video) and all hell broke lose on his campaign, including renewed speculation that he could be Jewish. That ended up being true, but Allen didn't appreciate it very much, as revealed in this snarky Washington Post piece by the religious right's favorite columnist (sarcasm on), Dana Milbank:
At a debate in Tysons Corner yesterday between Republican Allen and Democrat [Jim] Webb, WUSA-TV's Peggy Fox asked Allen, the tobacco-chewing, cowboy-boot-wearing son of a pro football coach, if his Tunisian-born mother has Jewish blood.
"It has been reported," said Fox, that "your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?"
Allen recoiled as if he had been struck. His supporters in the audience booed and hissed. "To be getting into what religion my mother is, I don't think is relevant," Allen said, furiously. "Why is that relevant -- my religion, Jim's religion or the religious beliefs of anyone out there?"
"Honesty, that's all," questioner Fox answered, looking a bit frightened.
"Oh, that's just all? That's just all," the senator mocked, pressing his attack. He directed Fox to "ask questions about issues that really matter to people here in Virginia" and refrain from "making aspersions."
"Let's move on," proposed the moderator, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
Yes, let's -- but not before we figure out what that was all about. Turns out the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported that the senator's mother, Etty, "comes from the august Sephardic Jewish Lumbroso family" and continued: "If both of Etty's parents were born Jewish -- which, given her age and background, is likely -- Senator Allen would be considered Jewish in the eyes of traditional rabbinic law, which traces Judaism through the mother."
So as the Post and others play catch-up on the story that Allen is not a very good person and is sensitive about his heritage, one has to wonder what instigated it all. Was it just an unfortunate falling of the cards that instigated Salon investigations and subsequent catch-up stories (followed of course by the Associated Press and the Post) into whether Allen used the N word while playing football at the University of Virginia? The mainstream media have been all over the "live" events, such as the video and Allen's reaction to the Jewish question, but they've done little hard reporting, which has been reserved to less mainstream left-of-center publications.
Is this a liberal attempt to oust a senator with hopes of regaining a Senate Majority? A smart Democrat would save this material for 2008 in order to throw the GOP presidential nomination process into chaos. Who is attempting to out what appears to be at worst a closet, or at best a former, racist and possible bully, before he became the religious right's standard-bearer?
Ryan Lizza's articles in The New Republic didn't happen in a vacuum. I doubt he woke up one morning and thought, "I need to investigate Sen. Allen's racial attitudes." I also doubt that Michael Scherer of Salon thought, "I will call all of Sen. Allen's teammates from his time as the quarterback of the University of Virginia to find out if he said some racist things back in the day."
And to cap it all off, the issues raised in the book by Allen's sister, Jennifer, in her book Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter, have been around for six years (surviving Allen's first election) and no one seemed to notice until now. So what gives?
Who is out to trash a potential leading candidate of the religious right?