Allen staff confirmed that the pin in his yearbook picture depicted a Confederate flag. An Allen aide told the magazine the senator didn't remember a Confederate flag on his Mustang but that it was possible.As a high school student in California, "I generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude," Allen said in a written statement to the magazine. "Life is a learning experience and I have learned quite a bit in the ensuing 36 years."
So, Allen pleads youthful ignorance? Okay, but how does that explain his voting against a state holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. and co-sponsoring a resolution expressing 'regret and sorrow [for] the loss' of Congressman William Munford Tuck, who opposed every piece of civil rights legislation in the '50s and '60s? George Allen was all grown up by the time he was in elected office.