{"id":8283,"date":"2006-08-24T09:46:51","date_gmt":"2006-08-24T13:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8283.html"},"modified":"2006-08-24T09:46:51","modified_gmt":"2006-08-24T13:46:51","slug":"putting-a-period-on-the-macaca-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/putting-a-period-on-the-macaca-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting a period on the macaca story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twelve days after Sen. [tag]George Allen[\/tag] (R-Va.) kicked off quite a firestorm with his use of the word “[tag]macaca[\/tag],” the senator hoped to finally put the story to rest with a direct apology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Virginia Sen. George Allen apologized directly to S.R. Sidarth yesterday, telling the 20-year-old Democratic campaign staffer that he was sorry for offending him with remarks that have generated nationwide criticism for being racially insensitive.<\/p>\n

Allen’s telephone call to Sidarth was the first direct contact between the two since Allen (R) was caught by Sidarth’s video camera calling him a “macaca” and welcoming the Fairfax native to “America and the real world of Virginia.”<\/p>\n

[tag]Sidarth[\/tag] said Allen told him that the [tag]apology[\/tag] was “from his heart.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is, however, reason to doubt that. Simultaneous with Allen’s alleged contrition was his campaign manager, trying to fire up the GOP base with the exact opposite message.<\/p>\n

Dick Wadhams, Allen’s top campaign aide, issued a carefully-leaked memo<\/a> to Republican allies blaming the media for creating a “feeding frenzy.” While Allen was publicly saying, “I take full responsibility. I’m not offering any excuses,” Wadhams was shifting responsibility and making all kinds of excuses.<\/p>\n

It’s an interesting, albeit cynical, strategy.
\n
\nAllen has clearly been hurt by the controversy, so he wants to present himself as a contrite candidate who acknowledges that he made a mistake — not because of regret, but in the hopes of winning back some of the voters he’s lost over the last two weeks. At the same time, the Allen campaign wants hard-core conservatives to believe Allen really isn’t sorry, but rather, is an innocent victim of a malicious smear orchestrated by the Washington Post. As far as Wadhams is concerned, Allen didn’t do anything wrong; the media did.<\/p>\n

It’s what makes Allen’s insistence that his apology was “from his heart” so hard to believe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Mr. Allen plummeting in the polls and his reelection prospects now in doubt, he and Mr. Wadhams are in damage-control mode. They have dropped their far-fetched insistence that the word “macaca” referred to Mr. Sidarth’s hairstyle. But they ought to get their stories straight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a rule, sincere regret usually doesn’t require inconsistent messages to different constituencies. As Matt Stoller put it<\/a>, “Allen isn’t sorry for his racist comment. Allen put out some soft words to appease those who are uncomfortable with racism, but is also allowing his campaign manager to embrace the full-throated repudiation of that fake apology.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve days after Sen. [tag]George Allen[\/tag] (R-Va.) kicked off quite a firestorm with his use of the word “[tag]macaca[\/tag],” the senator hoped to finally put the story to rest with a direct apology. Virginia Sen. George Allen apologized directly to S.R. Sidarth yesterday, telling the 20-year-old Democratic campaign staffer that he was sorry for offending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}