George Allen R-VA - - A Primer - Democratic Underground

LibDemAlways

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Fri Jan-28-05 05:02 PM
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George Allen R-VA - - A Primer

Edited on Fri Jan-28-05 05:03 PM by LibDemAlways

First term US Senator George Allen has been getting a lot of tv face time of late -- grandstanding on the Rice nomination and appearing this week on Nightline to defend the administration's Iraq policy.

There's a thread on the Virginia forum that suggests his name is being mentioned in the state as a 2008 Presidential candidate - and on the surface, at least, it's understandable. His father was an NFL coach. He's young (52) and he wins elections (Congressman, Governor, Senator). He's not too bright, but that's clearly not an issue for Republicans.

What ought to be an issue is the fact that Allen has racial skeletons in his closet, some of which he's never fully explained and one which he's never admitted in his adult, public life. In 2002 Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times about the Confederate Flag tacked to the wall of Allen's living room and the noose in his former law office, both explained away as being inocuous. Allen claimed to be a collector of flags, and the noose merely indicated that he was a strong advocate of "law and order."

In a Richmond-Times piece the same year columnist Jeff Schapiro documented Allen's record as a public servant. As a state delegate,he opposed a Virginia Holiday for Martin Luther King. In Congress he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1991. As Governor he decreed an annual "Confederate History and Heritage Month," praising the Confederate rebellion as a struggle for independence and referring to slaves as "settlers."

My interest in Allen's career is somewhat personal. He was a member of my high school graduating class in 1970. He isn't a native Virginian - not even close. He was born in Whittier, CA in 1952 and grew up in the Los Angeles area. By the mid 60s his family was living in Palos Verdes Estates - a well-to-do suburb bordering the ocean. The Allens lived high on a hill in a beautiful home with a great view of the city and coastline below.

At Palos Verdes High George played football and became varsity quarterback his senior year. By then his father was head coach of the LA Rams. While pro football was integrated, Palos Verdes was definitely not. The school, like the community, was almost 100% caucasion, and minorities were treated as a curiosity, at best, and a threat, at worst.

George Allen stood out not because he was a football player or his dad was an NFL coach. He stood out because even then, as a teenager in Southern California in the era of Vietnam protests and Kent State, he was a Confederate sympathizer and plotter of a twisted hate crime carried out against his own school.

His senior year Allen drove a Ford wagon festooned with Confederate flag decals. He took to describing himself as a "rebel." No one paid too much attention until one Monday morning we returned from the weekend break to find the walls of the school spraypainted with anti-white graffiti and mentioning the name of a predominantly black school our football team was schedule to play that week. Vandalism on our campus was shocking and practically unheard of. Racially tinged vandalism targeting "whitey" sparked a lot of outrage...until one of his accomplices came forward and fingered Allen as the culprit. He had vandalized his own school to stir up animosity toward black kids he had never met. Ultimately he had to issue an apology over the school PA system. Some classmates recall that he was suspended, but I don't believe he received anything more than a slap on the wrist.

Some of my classmates consider this to be ancient history and nothing more than a teenage prank. I have a harder time letting it go, particularly when I read about nooses in law offices, Confederate flags as living room decor, and a sorry voting record on Civil Rights - and everything else. The question, I guess, is what is the statue of limitations on "youthful" indiscretions? Would this be a dealbreaker for the repukes or not? Thoughts?