But that is not really why I feel bad for Allen (and, to be sure, he denies putting a deer head in the mailbox of a black family). I feel bad for Allen because the whole episode exposed him for what he really is -- and by that I don't mean a racist. The arc of the controversy, from macaca to the Jewishness to the "nigger" allegations, has unmasked Allen as a man with neither the street smarts nor the political dexterity to take control of a crisis, contain it, and turn it to his advantage. It is a quality a president would find useful.
Macacagate, initially, was a completely salvageable situation. The term was not well-enough understood for most people to draw conclusions about it. Macaca had a sophomoric quality to it, something on the order of a bowel movement joke. It was not like he stood on the steps of the University of Virginia and said, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." George Allen is no George Wallace, and all that was required of him was a quick apology and a couple of appearances on the morning or late night talk shows to make a little fun of himself for being goofy. There would have been a few more stories, but after a couple of days the storm would have passed. He would have been fine -- maybe even a little better for showing that he had a sense of humor.
In that scenario, when the surprise Jewish ancestry questions came up, he wouldn't have been under siege, and could instead have taken it for the gift that it was. The Jewish grandparents story should have been a boon to Allen: The timing was perfect, three or four days before Rosh Hashanah. The strategy could not have been more clear: Learn to say "Shalom" and "Shana Tova" without butchering them. Even a straight "Happy New Year" early in the stump speeches would have worked for him. Instead, his response -- a riff about ham sandwiches and pork chops -- was almost as befuddling as "macaca."
The "nigger" allegations would have been a test under any circumstances. The racial fault lines in America are as treacherous as ever, so he would have had to be careful. But, again, those lines should have been navigable. Had he come to this controversy without the macaca baggage, he would have had a chance to help himself a lot, and even the country some. It was his missed mitzvah moment.
To have used the word "nigger" as a young white man on the campus of a southern university in 1970 is not an unforgivable act, and to be accused of that 36 years later is in no way a politically fatal event: Look at the Klan history of Robert Byrd (as Republicans so often tell people to do). But critical to any response is to be convincing -- either plausibly claim that you did not say it and would never have said it, or else stress that you understand that saying it was wrong and contemptible. Allen would have had to demonstrate that he now understands that the kind of society that tolerated, encouraged, and often rewarded that kind of behavior was diseased -- unjust and un-American -- and needs to be condemned. Even now..
What he should have said, if the accusation is true (he denies it), is this:
I'm sorry. I was wrong, the country was wrong. I applaud the fact that as a nation we have worked long and hard to correct those wrongs and have made great strides in creating a more just and equitable America. I am not a saint, not now and not then, but I do believe in the American ideal of justice, and I pledge myself to work every day to make sure that this country lives up to it promise for all of us.The problem, of course, is that you have to believe it when you say it. After macaca and the pork chops, the confederate flag and the hangman's noose in his office, we don't exactly know, for a fact, that George Allen does.
Terence Samuel is a political writer in Washington, D.C.
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