George Allen's New Macaca Maccabee Controversy

Watch it, then judge for yourself.

The Hysterical Heart-Ache Machine claims, of course, that conservatives' dislike of the question is due to the fact that the South is anti-semitic, and any "taint" of Jewish blood would be bad for George Allen:

The premise of this argument is that many Southern voters are anti-Semitic. Is that Hugh Hewitt's belief, as well as his colleague, Dean Barnett's? (Hat tip: Mike.) Here's the video, where Allen regards asking about his Jewish inheritance is a way to cast "aspersions" on him.

Note that the statement he mischaracterizes is in fact offered by a Jew, who was himself offended by the question.

Over at National Review Online's The Corner, there also seems to be some debate as to whether Allen's annoyance at the question indicates some sort of anti-semitism or at least mean-spiritedness.

I don't think so.

Watch the question again. Listen as the questioner links the question the "macaca" imbroglio. Note how she doesn't ask if there is any Jewish heritage in his family, but rather "when that Jewish heritage ended." The question, in other words, isn't about whether or not Allen has a Jewish heritage, but when, precisely, his nigger-hatin' white-supremacist Christianist mother chose to turn her back on her Jewish roots and purge any Jewishness from her descendants.

That's what the question was about. And that's what rankled Allen.

For God's sakes.

The question was not simply asking if his grandfather Felix was Jewish. It was asking why the Allen family had decided to "end" its "Jewish heritage."

Newsflash: In any interfaith marriage, the kids can be raised as one faith, the other faith, or a hybrid sort of non-faith that incorporates the traditions of both (with an awful lot of inherent contradiction in religious dogma).

This particular questioner was suggesting that it was wrong, wrong, wrong for Allen's mother to have raised George Allen as an evil Christian rather than a Jew.

It was the perfect Gotcha question, admitting of few good responses. Which is precisely why it was asked. It's a variation of "When did you stop beating your wife?" It's just "When did your family decide to become self-hating Jew-hatin' heritage-deniers?"

No one ever asked John Kerry why his grandfather had decided to turn his back on Judaism in a debate.

Update: Dean Barnett, who is Jewish,* who posted a comment crying foul about this question from a reader, who is also Jewish, responds to Andrew Goldfarb Sullivan's accusations that he is not sufficiently senstive to Jewish slurs.

Andrew Sullivan's got a full plate. He's not conservative, but is the self-appointed spokesman for "true conservativism," and he's not Jewish, but is now, apparently, bucking to get Abe Foxman's job at the ADL, and criticizing Jewish writers for being too stupid to know when they should be offended.

(Previously, of course, he declared himself no longer Catholic and then, upon the ascension of Benedict to Pope, began explaining to the Catholic Church what "true Catholicism" ought to look like.)

Okay, I can play that game. I'm not gay, but I hereby appoint myself Spokesman for True Homosexuality, and as my first action in this capacity, I declare that Andi really ought to suck on a nice fat shut-the-fuck-up dick, because really, you're embarrassing the rest of us homos.

* At least I think he's Jewish. He tried to sell me a rug and other schmattas when I met him.

I would have asked if he were Jewish or not, but that's considered impolite, so I simply socially ostracized him and accused him of murdering Jesus behind his back.

posted by Ace at 03:43 PM

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