Which is what George Allen is. I thought everything had been said; That is, until I caught Doug C.'s comment about Virginians giving Allen a "pass" for having used that kind of talk back in the 70's or 80's or two weeks ago, for that matter. I see the Great Triad of Unprotected still includes the White Southern Male, along with social workers and, of course, Muslims or anyone from that side of the planet. And yet Doug C., who is necessarily coming from a condescending leftward perspective in making such a remark, fails to recognize what he has done, which is to perpetuate a stereotype so totally wrong that it makes sensible people cringe. Not only is it stereotyping out of ignorance, it is stereotyping that misses by a mile (the widest part of the Potomac river as it lies between Virginia and Maryland. This is significant because while Maryland appears as a "Blue State" during elections and never joined the Confederacy (which is a central issue to George Allen and people like him), Maryland, which was prevented by Lincoln from seceding, by his intervention in that state's voting process at that crucial time, remains far more "unreconstructed" in reality, than Virginia, which often comes up as "red." Strange, but true. I say this from the perspective of a man whose maternal forebears were all Virginians and whose paternal ones were Marylanders or Washington, D.C. natives dating back to the early 19th century (when D.C. was still part of Maryland, by which it is landlocked on three sides).

Will the left never stop exercising its right to characterize southerners as something other than simply Americans with an accent not found in Missesota? We (Maryland and Virginia are both in the south - try and bear that in mind) are just as enlightened on the matter of racism and bigotry - admittedly probably more familiar with it than most of the rest of the country, so sue us - as anyone from the north, midwest, southwest or the freakin' Bay Area.

Taking a position of superiority and assuming that Virginians (or that tribe of people who inhabit the Tidewater region of the south, which includes also a little bit of Delaware) are somehow subhuman, "rednecks" (a word parallel in our unique history to the "N-word", by the way, and not appreciated any more when applied to denigrate us, and no, Doug C., you didn't use it, but people do use it here all the time, and it was only a breath away, wasn't it?) is at best disingenuous, at worst just another form of bigotry and ignorance that happens to be acceptable to certain people of a leftward persuasion who need to feel superior to someone in order to assuage their liberal guilt.

Yep, we know George Allen's "not from around here" and as Lincoln might have observed, he's fooled some of the people some of the time - but never all of them, and never all at once. Now his cover is so thoroughly blown by his own arrogance (and I would never suggest that was learned from the lovely people of California, where I've lived for a time myself - but never pretended to be anything but a DelMarVa hillbilly fish out of water). Webb, on the other hand, IS from "around here", an actual Virginian and a former Republican.

Allen is in a frenzy now, one of those "wounded bear" types who will try anything to save his political hide when he was prepared to assume the mantle of the current Idiot-in-Chief, but it's not going to happen. That party is over. So could we just try and refrain from dividing ourselves further in the pursuit of decency? Virginia thanks you and so does Maryland.

Well hell, there's a connection right there! And because of it, CT, you know damned good and well that a characteristic of our neck of the woods is storytelling, most of which involves some obscure relative, and that most of us are, for reasons which elude me even after your dissertation, obsessed or at least very interested in our geneology.

As to the LW's parents here, who the hell really knows? You might be right. Or they might have one of those genetically-wired geneology obsessions like the rest of from a region to ofen mistakenly referred to (I like to think it's mistaken anyway) "Backwater" do. I still fail to understand the LW's failure to understand a curiosity about where one's ancestral trail leads, but I've had that same problem with my future ex-wife III, too. She seems to take a great deal of pride in neither knowing nor caring where her forbears came from, even though she keeps a handwritten letter from a great-grandfather who served with the Union forces during our Civil War. The letter was penned while he was a prisoner at Andersonville. How could one not be curious with something like that in the desk drawer?

I don't think this is pathological. It is probably just the residue of the Scots-Irish/Powhattan Nation tribal tradition/genetic thing we both have, whether you're willing to acknowlege it or not.

I'd like to see your Hawkins-like wild side a little more, by the way. :)