In football, there are penalties for piling on and unsportsmanlike conduct.
In politics, you can get away with almost anything.
Democrats are playing a very dirty game - the political equivalent of a
crack back block - in their attempt to smear Sen. George Allen, (R-Va.) and
elect his Democratic opponent, James Webb. The latest is a charge by an
acquaintance and a former college football teammate at the University of
Virginia that Allen used the "n word" and other racial slurs in the early
1970s. Allen adamantly denies it, but these days the charge alone is enough
to sully one's reputation and create doubt in some minds.
Allen's chief accusers are R. Kendall Shelton, a radiologist in North
Carolina, who says he used to be a Democrat but is now an Independent, and
Christopher C. Taylor, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama.
Shelton says Allen's alleged racial slurs make him unfit for public office.
That's funny. Before these allegations, Allen was fit enough to serve as
governor of Virginia and as a United States senator. And it is more than
coincidental that this sliming is taking place just six weeks before an
election.
Unlike the "macaca" incident a few weeks ago, which he allowed to fester and
did not apologize for until the political damage was done, Allen wasted no
time responding to this latest charge. Among those rushing to his defense
was another former teammate, Rob Berce, a wide receiver who graduated in
1976. Berce told The Washington Post, "I have never heard him use that word"
(the n word). He just seemed to be a pretty upfront, good guy."
The head football coach at Wake Forest University, Jim Grobe, told the Post
he is "shocked" by the allegations. "I never heard George say anything like
that," he said. Even Allen's first wife, Anne Waddell, denied Taylor's story
that Allen used the n-word during a visit to their house. "I can say with
absolute certainty that (Taylor's) recollection that George said anything at
all that could be considered racially insensitive is completely false. He
would never utter such a word." You can't do much better than to have an
ex-wife as a character witness.
The piling on continued with an accusation by the political action committee
VoteVets.org that Allen voted against a bill to provide advanced body armor
for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. VoteVets.org spent nearly
$45,000 for a television commercial that claims Allen voted for body armor
that could be easily pierced. VoteVets.org's board of advisers includes 2004
Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark and former Democratic
Senator Bob Kerrey. The Web site factcheck.org looked into the substance of
the TV commercial and found none. As reported in The Washington Examiner
recently, this nonpartisan Web site is associated with the Annenberg Public
Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The organization says the
commercial overstates the body armor problem and that Allen did not vote
against money for the vests.
The strategy by Allen's opponents is to get him off-message about the war,
taxes, economic opportunity and a host of other issues and to sow doubt
among undecided voters as to his character. Here is a man who grew up in a
football family with a father who coached the Los Angeles Rams and
Washington Redskins, two teams with many black players. Allen's father
earned the loyalty of his players - black and white. He was a leader and a
motivator of men. If Allen, the father, were a bigot, or allowed his son to
be one, he could not lead men on the football field or enjoy the admiration
of black and white fans.
This is politics at its dirtiest and meanest. People wondering why more good
men and women don't run for office have their answer in this piling on of
George Allen. If this were a football game, the Democratic team would be
penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct and Allen would have an automatic
first down. But this is politics and it's easier to wipe off the mud from a
hard tackle than it is to clean yourself up after being struck by political
mudballs. |