I imagine he likes to watch a Mel Gibson film while chowing down on his tasty porcine delicacy.

Allen should do the honorable thing and drop out of the race. The GOP can then ask new Virginia resident Tom DeLay to run in Allen's place. Who wouldn't love that?

...there still may be time to cast George Allen and Katherine Harris as a team on the next Amazing Race.

If it makes Allen feel better, Jews consider someone Jewish only if their Mother was Jewish, so Allen can correctly claim that he is not Jewish. On the other hand, if he were to apply the standard used by the Nazis who relentless dug through several generations looking for a single drop of Jewish blood in the family tree, having a Jewish grandfather would be more then enough to provide Allen with a one way ticket to a Concentration Camp.

Boy, just think, another Bush-Cheney duplex! Allen can take Bush's place as the buffoon who stumbles each time he opens his mouth and DeLay is the Cheney clone who has already got it all figured out and has the sleaze balls all lined up to do his bidding from undisclosed locations. What a tidy segue from neo-con to neo-nuts. Or is that reversed?

Saintzak, you're brilliant! Or maybe for the next edition of Survivor they could divide the teams into Progressives, Slight Wingnuts, AmTaliban, Batshitcraazzies!

Allen deserves all the outrage he gets for being both intolerant and politically stupid.

But can we please spare a little outrage for the reporter who asked "Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?"

Fox, the reporter, wants us to believe that her subtext here was something like "Please tell us about this interesting and rich part of your personal history." But she doesn't phrase it like that. The back end of her question, "tell us...at which point Jewish identity might have ended" is loaded. I think her subtext was more like, "For the enlightenment of my liberal readers, how long have you been a self-hating jew?"

Of course, it doesn't speak well for George Allen's character that he heard a very different subtext altogether: "For the enlightenment of your racist supporters, aren't you really a dirty jew?"

The reporter asked a completely unoffensive and valid question here. Just before the question was asked, Senator Allen again mentioned how his father had been in a concentration camp. If he is going to use the concentration camp and his personal faith as a huge part of his campaign, it is perfectly valid to ask this question about his family history and his faith. IOn fact, she was referencing an article from 8/25 in The Forum, an online Jewish Magazine, that was well written and completely objective, stating that his mother might be jewish.

This is about context, and this stories are taking a life of their own on the web.

The issue is not the question asked, but the response given (and that of the audience). And today, there is a snippet in the Times, that yesterday Senator Allen's campaign released a press release that he does indeed have Jewish hertiage......

I thought it was S. R. Siddharth, not D.

If Allen is corting the KKK or the CCC vote (cleaned up version of the KKK, note that triple c's look a lot less menancing than triple K's), his being descended from Jews isn't going to help him any. The KKK lynched quite a few Jews also (for that matter Catholics too).

Of course if you believe the literal word of the bible then we are all descended from Jews because of Noah.

Bryan,

Can't there be two issues, one about the question and one about the response?

I'm not trying to shout down the main story here: Allen makes another gaffe about race which raises serious questions about his attitudes. Don't worry--the media is all over it. And in the interests of disclosure, I'm not a Republican. I'm not even an American.

But there is another issue, and that's the intent of the question. You're right: it's about context. I find it a little disingenuous when Fox claims she was "shocked" at Allen's reaction--as if she had no idea that race was an issue in Allen's campaign, or that he might be sensitive about the issue.

However silly or disturbing we may find it that Allen doesn't want to talk about a Jewish lineage, aren't politicians and their families entitled to any privacy at all? If the reporter suspected the Nazis had imprisoned Allen's grandfather for being a homosexual, would it be alright to out him for that instead? Personally, I find both Jewishness and homosexuality to be interesting, positive identity traits. But that doesn't mean I have the right to know about either in the case of public officials and, particularly, their families.

Fox could have asked Allen whether his grandfather's imprisonment had informed Allen's views on religious tolerance. But she didn't. She asked when his family's Jewish identity had stopped. And that's what irks me about her question: it carries judgement. "Who in your family repudiated your Jewishness?"

Okay maybe "outrage" is a little strong. I'm mildly annoyed.

means "my shit" in French. So he might of got it from his mom.

Watching George Allens skating on the issues and questions asked of him, a second career is a definite possibility when looses in November: The National Hockey League. Their skaters earn more than senators, however, they have still better skating skills.

Does anyone know what the basis is for Allen saying that Webb is the real antisemite in the race, however spurious the reasoning? Or is this just another example of completely unfounded GOP projection of one's own failings upon your opponent?

The Republicans are not even trying to hide their racism any longer. Macaca, "Jewish aspersion" nonsense, the whole hoo-hah about illegal immigrants (which I will address below) and most recently, John Kline's subordinate ranting about - and I am not making this up - "Jap cars" at a political event for his opponent, Coleen Rowley - the Minnesota FBI whistleblower in the Moussaoui case.

George Allen's naked racism is not even worth discussing any longer. Why doesn't he just show up some day in a hood and get it over with?

The illegal immigrant issue, sadly, keeps coming back. Mostly, fo course, Mexican and Central American immigrants, although the majority of illegals are from elsewhere, including a friend I long since lost touch with in Chicago, who was an illegal Brit! Employing undocumented workers is a federal offense. If serious efforts to seize the assets of employers - including corporations, yes, even those of the size of Wal-Mart - who employ illegals, treating them like RICO cases, I suspect the job market for illegal immigrants would vanish quickly. Remove the demand, the supply will eventually stop - when the word gets out that there's no market up here, they'll stop coming.

All that said, I return to my original point in conclusion: The Republican party is currently - and now blatantly - the party of racists and racism in the United States. They need to be punished for this, beginning at the polls this November, and continuing through eternity in any sorts of personal hells they happen to believe in.