More Thots (Sic) on George Allen's Moron- and/or Maroon-icity

Nick Gillespie | August 16, 2006

Lest we forget: Embattled incumbent Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) is in trouble for referring to an Indian-American operative of his electoral rival, Democrat James Webb, as "Macaca," which refers to a type of monkey and may or may not have been intended as a good-old-boy-style racial epithet.

Yesterday, Reason's Jeff Taylor called Allen, the son of the legendary high-performance loser pro football coach of the same name (really, who cares how many winning seasons you had unless you win the Super Bowl?), "a moron...[who] does not have the wattage to man a deep fryer support line in Bangalore, let alone serve responsibly in the U.S. Senate."

On this score, I respectfully disagree with my colleague: I think Allen is exactly the sort of vacuous protoplasmic blob who perfectly represents the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, Goode Tymes Eating Clubbe, and International Whoopie Parlor.

However, New York Post columnist and occasional Reason contributor Robert A. George seconds Jeff's analysis, taking it even a step further:

I'm not ready to call George Allen a racist. However, I feel pretty confident in saying that this man certainly doesn't have the political smarts (attack a rival's campaign worker with an ambiguously insulting word -- while the the GUY IS VIDEOTAPING IT) to even think about running for re-election to the Senate let alone for PRESIDENT....

In the eternal words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

More here.

Comments

|8.16.06 @ 3:12PM|#

Jesus Nick, George Allen was a great football coach. He consistently won with inferior teams in both LA and Washington. He got elected to the HOF despite being totally politically incorrect and holding politics loathed by 90% of the voters. If you don't think he was a great football coach, then you don't know anything about the NFL. Could you at least keep your snarky comments combined to the living and concerning subjects you know something about?

|8.16.06 @ 3:24PM|#

legendary high-performance loser
vacuous protoplasmic blob
Vote Allen: He's a Moron
Allen's utter stupidity

My, my, aren't we sooooo Politcally Correct!

Insults based on *anything* but race are perfectly fine, including razzing some guy for being bald, but anything with a hint of race (or was it species?)..."It is taboo!"

|8.16.06 @ 3:26PM|#

Jesus Nick, George Allen was a great football coach. He consistently won with inferior teams in both LA and Washington. He got elected to the HOF despite being totally politically incorrect and holding politics loathed by 90% of the voters. If you don't think he was a great football coach, then you don't know anything about the NFL. Could you at least keep your snarky comments combined to the living and concerning subjects you know something about?

|8.16.06 @ 3:39PM|#

John,

I suppose Nick can speak for himself but I think his remark about "really, who cares how many winning seasons you had unless you win the Super Bowl?" was meant to be ironic/snarky in the good old suck.com tradition. You're right that Allen was an excellent coach but you're wrong about inferior teams. I was in DC when the "over-the-hill" gang was at their prime and that was a fun bunch of players. Any team with both Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer available to play QB was not inferior, plus Larry Brown,Charley Taylor, Len Hauss - pro bowl guys all of them. The 1970-1972 New England Patriots - that was inferior.

|8.16.06 @ 3:41PM|#

Mr. F. Le Mur

H&R has consistantly mocked Allen for being an idiot, not for being racist, since it is pretty unclear just what the fuck he thought he was saying. I think the intelligence of a senitorial candidate is relevant to his leadership potential, and anyway its a funny story. So lighten up.

|8.16.06 @ 3:41PM|#

I'm just amused that their story has gone from "we called him mohawk, and mohawk sounds like macaca" to "George has no idea what that word means or why he used it" to "we called him macaca around the campaign all the time: it means "shithead""

The original event was just bad and dumb. But it's the pathetic attempt at counterspin that's just plain burying the guy.

|8.16.06 @ 3:49PM|#

What I don't get about this whole thing is how stupid and uptight politicians are. If I am a politician and the other side sends some poor guy over to follow me around with a video camera, I go with it. I point him out at every speech. Ask him if he is doing okay. Invite him into my campaign bus for beers. I offer the guy a job on my campaign for twice the money he is making for the other guy. I would basically make the guy my campaign's mascot. I would make the other side look so stupid for sending him, they would never so much as send a guy with a tape recorder to one of my events again. How hard is that? You don't exactly have to be a genius to figure it out.

|8.16.06 @ 3:58PM|#

John,
You got my vote!

Nick Gillespie|8.16.06 @ 3:59PM|#

I tried posting a rebuttal of John's defense of Coach Allen of this twice and it didn't show up (hey, who do I complain to about this g.d. server?). But it went something like this (and echoes vanya's comment):

Allen inherited underperforming teams, not inferior ones. His '67 Rams had, for instance, Roman Gabriel, Jack Snow, Merlin Olsen in his pre-FTD days, Deacon Jones, and a bunch more top players. When he moved to the Redskins, he was able to (and did) trade for anyone/everyone he wanted.

Allen improved those teams and that's to his credit (as is his third-best winning percentage as an NFL head coach). But as Bud Grant, Marv Levy, Dan Reeves, Fran Tarkenton, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, and a host of other standouts (perhaps especially Joe Namath going the other way) will tell you, all the winning seasons in the world don't make up for even one Super Bowl win.

That's why George Allen the NFL coach was a high-performance loser.

I'm glad to see no one is disputing that George Allen fils is a maroon.

|8.16.06 @ 4:05PM|#

John,

But apparently, you have to be smarter than Allen or his campaign organization.

:-)

|8.16.06 @ 4:11PM|#

Nick,

It takes a lot of luck to win a Superbowl. There is no way that I would rate a coach like Brian Billick or Web Eubank as good of coaches as either Bud Grant or Marv Leavy. Think about this, had Tom Landry won one more game his last season, Jimmy Johnson has the number 2 pick in the 1989 draft and probably gets Tony Manderich (Dallas' line was horrible and Manderich was the best LT prospect in years) rather than Troy Aikman in the draft. Take Aikman away from the Cowboys and no way do the Cowboys win a Superbowl in the 1990s and Johnson is a "high perfomance" in your eyes. As it is Johnson has two Superbowl rings and most of the credit for the third championship they won after he left. Just because Allen was never lucky enough to get just the right combination of players to win a championship, doesn't mean he wasn't a great coach.

|8.16.06 @ 4:17PM|#

Brian Billick is a complete joke as a coach and should've been fired eons ago. Jimmy Johnson is overrated (though not god-awful) and was the recipient of the mysterious generosity of the Minnesota Vikings. Without that, a whole bunch of Pro Bowlers don't play for Dallas, and Dallas doesn't win a Super Bowl. In my moments of maximum paranoia, I think the NFL paid off the Vikings to revive "America's Team". Of course, as a good American, I friggin' hate the Cowboys.

A Super Bowl win is a nice thing. I thoroughly enjoyed the Bucs' championship. Although another one wouldn't reach the highs of the first, it wouldn't suck, either.

Robert|8.16.06 @ 4:20PM|#

"But as Bud Grant, Marv Levy, Dan Reeves, Fran Tarkenton, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, and a host of other standouts (perhaps especially Joe Namath going the other way) will tell you, all the winning seasons in the world don't make up for even one Super Bowl win."

None of those people were club owners, so I wouldn't take that statement by them seriously as it comes to hiring head coaches. Geo. Allen Sr. was damn good. The Super Bowl is only one goddamn game coming at the end of an elimination tournament, and is not a good predictor of ability. All the ability in the world only gets a team (including coaches) into contention; unless their ability is at an unreal level compared to the rest of the whole league, the playoffs are a crapshoot.

Allen Sr. could find ways of using players his assistants probably would never have thought of. He also was among the few who could argue with officials and actually be right -- not that arguing with them does any good, but it showed his knowledge of the game.

|8.16.06 @ 4:25PM|#

John, almost all campaigns have trackers (heck, Allen has TWO trackers following Webb), and what you propose IS what happens a lot of the time.

Allen basically broke the fourth wall of politics here, like an actor in a stage play asking an audience member for you phone number in the middle of Hamlet.

|8.16.06 @ 4:25PM|#

"Brian Billick is a complete joke as a coach and should've been fired eons ago."

I agree pro, but Billick has a Superbowl ring which by Nick's standards puts him above Allen. As far as Jimmy Johnson, the Walker trade was unbelievably one sided but only so because Johnson did an unbelievable job using all of the draft picks it got him. Had Johnson blown the draft picks, that trade would not be remembered. That said, Johnson derves some credit for building the Cowboys. I hate the Cowboys more than anyone, but you have to give credit where it is due.

|8.16.06 @ 4:26PM|#

"I tried posting a rebuttal of John's defense of Coach Allen of this twice and it didn't show up (hey, who do I complain to about this g.d. server?). "
Comment by: Nick Gillespie at August 16, 2006 03:59 PM

Now, that's funny. Possibly the server macaques have nits to pick.

And, jeepers, Nick; you should know better than to slander a pleistocene paragon like the One True George Allen. You're just begging for a scolding.

|8.16.06 @ 4:40PM|#

Football aside (Go Steelers), there should be absolutely no doubt that Allen is a redneck and his insult was a well-know racist term. Read it and weep:

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2006/08/frameshop_macac.html#more

Allen knew exactly what he was saying. Pardon my French: Fuck that cracker.

|8.16.06 @ 4:46PM|#

Speaking of the Super Bowl = quality, I agree with the argument that that position is mostly bunk. There are a lot of players on any team, there are bundles of intangibles (one I observed first hand with Tampa was avoiding injuries for a complete season--a minor miracle in itself), there's coaching (and not just the head coach), etc., etc., etc.

For example, Dan Marino is definitely one of the greatest, if not the greatest, NFL QB to ever play. Yet people who think they know football constantly question his "greatness" because of the absence of Super Bowl rings on his fingers. The virtual nonexistence of a running game or a defense most of the time he played had nothing to do with it, I'm sure. Though he did have a great head coach. Good thing Shula got those rings early on, or he'd be criticized, too.

|8.16.06 @ 4:56PM|#

I'm not ready to call George Allen a racist.

I am. Geroge Allen is a racist pile of shit.

|8.16.06 @ 6:16PM|#

I'm with Akira - if Allen hadn't been inseparable from the Confederate flag for the last 40 or so years despite not being from the South I may have given him the benefit of the doubt, but there is more that a little bit of a pattern here.

Tim Cavanaugh|8.16.06 @ 7:59PM|#

It takes a lot of luck to win a Superbowl.

Which, as Napolean noted, is the most important quality a leader can have.

|8.16.06 @ 8:10PM|#

it is either unintionally incredibly ironic...

OR

a smart little comment, when you said "what a maroon", since the term "maroon" (bugs bunny aside) is actually a race based reference to one's skin color/%age of black vs. white blood (so to speak)

maroon, quadroon, etc.

what would alanis think?

|8.16.06 @ 9:13PM|#

Despite the -oon ending, "maroon" is not a percentage-of-black blood word like "quadroon" and "octoroon;" rather, it means RUNAWAY slave.

|8.16.06 @ 9:31PM|#

It gets better.

MMFA is noting that Allen's mother was born and raised in Tunisia. It seems very unlikely to me that he didn't know macaca is a potential slur.

Either way, he's racist, stupid, or both.

|8.16.06 @ 9:33PM|#

I have no opinion on the NFL coach thing, other than to say that Jimmy Johnson deserves lots of credit for refraining from strangling Jerry Jones all those years. Although, thinking about it, humanity might be better off had Johnson let his guard down just once.

As for Allen Jr., I'm with John completely. That Allen got so rattled by one guy with a camera shows a serious lack of character. He has no sense of humor and little restraint, both of which qualities are essential in any job that requires working with people. If he blows up at one of his opponent's flunkies -- and one with a videocamera, dammit -- he really should not be in the Senate.

|8.16.06 @ 11:34PM|#

tbone,

Allen's very stupidty is his best defense. The idea that he is familiar with the meaning of a term 95% of the people on this board would have had to have looked up if the media hadn't told us what it meant is just completely implausible. And even if he knew what it meant (highly unlikely) why the heck would he use it in front of an audiene of rural Virginias who would have had no idea what he was talking about? My guess is that makaka is just his made nonsense name for a guy who looked like a foriegner. Less offensive than calling the dude "Apu" or "Ghanid" (ala Senator Clinton) but I guess mildly offensive nonetheless.

|8.17.06 @ 2:45AM|#

thone: I don't think you've been following the story. Allen is one of the few people in America who would be unlikely to simply pull the term out of the air. His mother was a French Colonial; the word is a French/Belgian epithet for Arab Africans. A "macaque" is a ground dwelling monkey that lives in North Africa.

Not just racism, but old-style smug colonial racism that was unpopular among Americans even before the 1960s, although its time may have come around again, now that we've taken up the White Man's Burden.

|8.17.06 @ 5:43AM|#

i'm prejudiced here because i've met ga jr several times and did not at all get an impression of stupidity. that doesn't mean he's a good candidate or is immune to saying stupid things...

but really, how can you diss weeb? the guy won titles in two different leagues! i can't think of any other coach in history who's done that (though someone might correct me there).

|8.17.06 @ 9:30AM|#

Ditto, Akira.

George Allen is the sort of crypto-Klansman that liberals imagine all Republicans to be.

|8.17.06 @ 11:07AM|#

James,

Our secretary at the office is French. She watched the clip on YouTube and didn't recognize what Allen said as being the term the French use to describe Algerians. Anything is possible, but this just seems really dubious. We'd have to believe Allen is using a perjoritive that it is highly doubtful he would even be aware of, in a sentence construction that makes little sense, against a kid who would have no idea what the slur means, in front of an audience that would be likewise clueless as to what he is talking about, and which doesn't even properly apply to this kid anyway (it's a slur for Algerians and Arabs, not Indians), and which was pronounced so badly a Frenchwoman couldn't even recognize it. My guess is that he was just making up a nonsense name for a kid who's name her forgot and who looked like the child of Indian immigrants might have , ma-ka-ka is what he came up with. Still somewhat insulting I guess, but hardly the story the press is trying to twist this into.

|8.17.06 @ 3:00PM|#

"It takes a lot of luck to win a Superbowl."

"Which, as Napolean noted, is the most important quality a leader can have."

Napolean thought winning the Superbowl was really that important?

|8.18.06 @ 1:55AM|#

FD&S: I'm glad to hear your secretary was raised right. I suppose there are a lot of young people nowadays who would look at you curiously if you used the term "spearchucker." But if, say, a French politician in his forties whose mother was raised in Jim Crow America threw that out, he would be called on it, even if most Frenchmen never heard the term.

It's not a "nonsense term" that no one has ever heard before. His odds of stumbling across a genuine racist epithet (and it is for real, there are plenty of citations of its use on Nazi-Skinhead-Type website) by just babbling are pretty slim. The fact is, picking up a racist term from his mother is the most INNOCENT explanation. The less innocent one is that he's a devotee of White Power propaganda.

Having your campaign appearances videotaped by the opposition is a fact of modern politics. It's done to catch the opponent doing or saying something extremely stupid. Mission accomplished.