He put a deer head in a black family's mailbox? Explicitly because they were black?

Is there a hate crime in there somewhere? If so, that answers the poster who said he didn't commit any crimes...

High school is one thing, but you're an *adult* in college. I think you deserve to be held accountable for things done in that era. Presumably, you know right from wrong.

Plus, w/respect to the "30 years ago" argument, when is it fair to consider it? 20 years ago? 10? 5? An 85 year old German woman who had been in the US for 50 years was just deported recently. She had worked at a concentration camp for a year or two *60* years ago. If she's held accountable for a heinous racially-motivated act, he should be too...

a jerk back then. It can't hurt to point out the relative continuity. So George allen learned not to call black people "niggers" in public. I taught my cat to use a litter box too. Amazing growth! He's still what he was. He was drawn to Virginia by what he believed to be true about the Old Dominion, and he's done his best to keep the worst of the legacy alive. This isn't "Swiftboating"; It is merely exposing part of a timeline of fecklessness, stupidity and cowardice wrapped up in a phlegm bag of self. George Allen, trust me, is every bit the racist, the bigot and the idiot he was when he first arrived in Virginia, uninvited, unneeded, and now, hopefully, exposed to the more fully-developed sensibilities of genuine Virginians and genuine Americans.

...but how about beginning by owning responsibility for past wrongs? That's what we're not seeing in Allen. A past filled with racism has never been admitted, only denied. There's no leadership in that. Only cowardice.

Really. Why give power to a stupid word?

And why waste time on someone's dumbass college behavior? I don't know a soul who ever went to college who isn't totally fucking embarrassed by aspects of his or her behavior during those years.

Isn't there enough to hang Allen by the very noose he keeps in his office in just the last year alone?

Jesus, Salon. You used to be great. Now you're just left wing swiftboaters. Fucking muckrakers.

shorter article: some people remember him saying a verybadword 30 years ago; some don't

For crying out loud...

if Allen were, say, a black gang banger in high school and college, would you be suggesting that people should get over it...people change, and that antisocial behavior is something they outgrow?

Right. Didn't think so.

For what Allen did 30 years ago. But a $100 donation to the Webb campaign Allen's Macaca comment six weeks ago. I say let's use a confederate flag as the burial shroud for Allen's presidential aspirations, which are now dead.

People who say that should really take a look at what it means. To me, there were two parts to that operation: one was filled with factual lies, and really just were used to to blunt Kerry's legitimate war hero status. This is the Swift-boating part.

The other part of the operation was to raise his activities in the Vietnam Vets Against the War. As long as you don't distort that -- and many did -- this was a legitimate matter to raise. To criticize the activities of the "young" John Kerry in the antiwar movement is legitimate, although I find those actions as heroic morally as his earlier physical courage. But like it or not, this really pisses a lot of people off, but it's the public record. Deal with it one way or another.

Politically, though, I'm wondering about the backlash. I remember the very effective counterattack by Schwarzenegger and his allies about the disgusting stories told about him by all those women.

How about his tax cuts, his support of Iraq, and so on?

Forget not that we lefties have a beloved reformed racist senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia - an admitted one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan.

And creepy Pope Ratzinger - no friend of the left - was in the Hitler Youth during the war.

I can't wait to see Webb kick that smug bastard Allen out of the Senate. I wih that in doing so we needn't have pulled this polished turd of a story out of our collective lefty asshole.

Allen is a racist. He should not have used that word in college. But he did, as did millions of other whites then. Even if it was the supposedly enlightened early 1970s. No one should have been using that word then, but frankly, writing that Allen was racist in front of some people 30 years makes for thin and accusatory reportage.

HOWEVER, his *contemporary* behavior DOES indicate that he is a racist. Macaca???? There are simply no other interpretations than racism, ignorance, and intellectual bankruptcy. The focus of the story *should* be that he hasn't changed a bit in 30 years. This refusal to change his ways--not just who he was back then--is what makes this man unfit for office, . The issue is that he hasn't grown a whit and therefore does not belong in a leadership position in this diverse nation.

Anonymous wrote “Plus, w/respect to the "30 years ago" argument, when is it fair to consider it? 20 years ago? 10? 5? An 85 year old German woman who had been in the US for 50 years was just deported recently. She had worked at a concentration camp for a year or two *60* years ago. If she's held accountable for a heinous racially-motivated act, he should be too...”

I have thought about this a lot in different contexts. But here is the thing…that woman worked at a place where people were being dehumanized and exterminated. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DEER HEAD INCIDENT, Allen just voiced opinions and had a racist attitude. Not a crime. The former is a crime against humanity, while the later is not in itself hurting anyone. If he really did stuff a deer head into a mailbox of a black family because the family is black, well that’s a hate-crime and it should not be overlooked unless he is punished and/or has owned-up to his actions.

I believe that people should be held accountable for a crime until they die and/or until they have been held accountable for their actions. But the key here is "actions". That he was a racist earlier in life is not something that should be focused on. That he seems to be a racist asshole now is what should be brought to light.