Ummm…So How Does This Fit In With The Kos ‘Anti-Semite’ Theory?
George Allen, contra Kos, doesn’t have a problem with Jews - in fact, he says, he is proud of that part of his family tree:
Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) said for the first time publicly yesterday that he has Jewish ancestry, a day after responding angrily to an exchange that included questions about his mother’s racial sensitivity and whether his family has Jewish roots.
At a campaign debate with Democratic challenger James Webb on Monday, a reporter asked Allen whether his mother’s father, Felix Lumbroso, was Jewish. He became visibly upset, saying his mother’s religion was not relevant to the campaign and chiding the reporter for “making aspersions about people because of their religious beliefs.”
Allen’s campaign manager said the senator believed the question was hostile because it followed another one about whether Allen had learned the word “macaca” from his mother. The word, which Allen used last month to describe a Webb volunteer, is a French slur for a dark-skinned person. Allen’s mother, Henrietta “Etty” Allen, is a native of Tunisia and speaks French.
In a statement released by his campaign yesterday, Allen said he was proud to have recently discovered that his grandfather, an anti-Nazi resistance fighter in North Africa, was part of a well-known Jewish family.
“I was raised as a Christian and my mother was raised as a Christian,” Allen, 54, said. “And I embrace and take great pride in every aspect of my diverse heritage, including my Lumbroso family line’s Jewish heritage, which I learned about from a recent magazine article and my mother confirmed.”
The WaPo, by the way, lets Kos get away with his anti-Semite slur:
Bloggers, some of whom are on Webb’s staff, spent yesterday writing furiously about the debate question and Allen’s answer. “What does Allen have against Jews?” one headline read on a national liberal blog.
That national liberal blog, as you put it, is known as Daily Kos. Come on, folks, that’s just weak…
Regardless of whether the question was appropriate, which it probably wasn’t, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that Allen claims not to have known that his grandfather, who was imprisoned by the Nazis in WWII, was Jewish? That he just recently learned it from a magazine article, of all places?
Just food for thought’s all. Maybe there’s increased scrutiny of Allen’s comments after the macaca imbroglio, but I don’t think it’s entirely unwarranted, considering how utterly unconvincing all of his explanations for that whole debacle turned out to be.
Well, his grandfather was a resistance fighter against the Nazis, so the fact that the Nazis put him in a camp isn’t surprising, regardless of his ethnicity or religion. In any event, he’s certainly (a) right in being indignant that the issue was raised in a political debate, completely divorced from policy considerations, and (b) not shying away from embracing his heritage…
Regardless of the question’s appropriateness, it’s been handled clumsily at best, with attacks on others for bigotry (when this is the macaca, noose-sporting guy that we’ve all come to know and love/loathe), the unbelievable claim that he only learned of his Jewish ancestry recently, and from a magazine article, etc.
I mean, at this point, I feel like the Olsen twins could run his campaign better for him.
Regardless of whether the question was appropriate, which it probably wasn’t, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that Allen claims not to have known that his grandfather, who was imprisoned by the Nazis in WWII, was Jewish?
Madeline Albright.
A situation like that is not so uncommon as you might think. Our family recently learned that we too had Jewish roots from other people doing ancestry research and publishing those results. So Mr. Allen’s claims of not knowing can be justified.
Yes, and even outside the anti-Semitic swamps of Europe, not a few Sons of Abraham changed their names and otherwise obscured their Jewish heritage in the early 20th and before. There were a few sound reasons for that, one might recall.
Now he can use the Little Flower’s quote on the subject:
“I’m a balanced ticket when I run alone.”