{"id":8334,"date":"2006-08-30T11:11:02","date_gmt":"2006-08-30T15:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8334.html"},"modified":"2006-08-30T11:11:02","modified_gmt":"2006-08-30T15:11:02","slug":"the-photograph-that-haunts-george-allen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-photograph-that-haunts-george-allen\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Photograph That Haunts George Allen’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month’s “[tag]macaca[\/tag]” controversy clearly damaged Sen. [tag]George Allen[\/tag] (R-Va.), not just because of the use of the slur, but because it reminded so many people of Allen’s disconcerting record on racial issues.<\/p>\n

We’re talking about the same George Allen who revered the Confederate flag during his political career, opposed a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King, referred to the NAACP as an “extremist group,” issued a Confederate History Month proclamation, calling the Civil War “a four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights,” and kept a noose alongside a Confederate flag in his law office. The “macaca” story became such a big deal in part because of the senator’s record — he simply hasn’t earned any benefit of the doubt on racial issues.<\/p>\n

But in The Nation, Max Blumenthal highlights<\/a> still more troublesome parts of Allen’s recent past on race.<\/p>\n

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, [tag]Allen[\/tag] personally initiated an association with the [tag]Council of Conservative Citizens[\/tag], the successor organization to the segregationist [tag]White Citizens Council[\/tag] and among the largest white supremacist groups.<\/p>\n

In 1996, when Governor Allen entered the Washington Hilton Hotel to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, he strode to a booth at the entrance of the exhibition hall festooned with two large Confederate flags — a booth operated by the Council of Conservative Citizens ([tag]CCC[\/tag]), at the time a co-sponsor of CPAC. After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC’s newsletter, the Citizens Informer.<\/p>\n

According to [tag]Baum[\/tag], Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum’s point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. “It helped us as much as it helped him,” Baum told me. “We got our bona fides.” And so did Allen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a senator hoping to dispel accusations of racism, possibly in advance of a presidential campaign, being tied to the CCC is a very serious problem.
\n
\nBy any reasonable measure, we’re talking about a notorious racist group.<\/p>\n

Descended from the White Citizens’ Councils that battled segregation in the Jim Crow South, the CCC is designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In its “Statement of Principles,” the CCC declares, “We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, the CCC was a co-sponsor of CPAC, one of the nation’s biggest far-right events, until CPAC head David Keene ousted them from his conference. (He told reporters, “They are racists.”)<\/p>\n

At this point, Allen’s campaign has not yet crafted a compelling response to this. When Blumenthal contacted John Reid, Allen’s communications director, to get the senator’s take on the CCC, Reid said, “I am unaware of the group you mention or their agenda and because we have no record of the Senator having involvement with them I cannot offer you any opinion on them.”<\/p>\n

Considering that Blumenthal has a photo<\/a> with Allen and CCC leaders, and comments from a CCC founder who said Allen knew exactly what the group is, pleading ignorance may not work.<\/p>\n

Given what we know, it’s safe to say George Allen has a problem with [tag]race[\/tag]. When Trent Lott’s [tag]racial[\/tag] problems came to fore, the GOP threw him under the bus. Will the [tag]Republicans[\/tag] stand by Allen now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month’s “[tag]macaca[\/tag]” controversy clearly damaged Sen. [tag]George Allen[\/tag] (R-Va.), not just because of the use of the slur, but because it reminded so many people of Allen’s disconcerting record on racial issues. We’re talking about the same George Allen who revered the Confederate flag during his political career, opposed a state holiday honoring Martin […]<\/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-8334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334","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=8334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}