RK ARCHIVE - Fox News on George "Welcome Macaca" Allen

Wow. That's pretty odd coming from the home of some of Klansman George's strongest opponents. You'd expect them to write the headline to say "Allen attacked by Liberal Webb Staffer." But no, they already point out that it was, in fact, an insult. They point out that Allen is trying to "explain it away." Not exactly a positive connotation.

"Twenty-year-old S.R. Sidarth spent last week following Allen's "listening tour" and filming the appearances for the Webb campaign. Sidarth is of Indian descent, but is a University of Virginia student born and raised in Fairfax County.

A video clip of the rally shows Allen calling Sidarth a name that sounded like "Macaca" +貚曌Gォ a term associated with a species of monkeys or a city in South Africa. Later in the clip he welcomed Sidarth to America and "the real world of Virginia."

Wow. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Fox News is actually being incredbily honest and direct with this so far. They explain that Macaca means monkey, which most papers have been afraid to do so far.

"Allen's campaign says the name was intended to be a variation of "Mohawk." That's the nickname campaign staffers gave Sidarth because of his hair, which is cropped closely on the sides. And the campaign says Allen called attention to Sidarth simply to welcome him to a place in Virginia that Webb has never been to and probably will never visit."

Now, Fox probably should've shown the picture of the kid at this point to counter Allen's argument. While they do mention that Webb has said Allen is stretching for explanations, they could've countered Allen's defense. I can't really get that pissed, though, as nobody else has shown the picture of the kid either.

When you're a conservative and Fox News practically spells out that you called somebody a monkey, you know you're in trouble. Fox doesn't appear to be protecting Allen. Like many Republicans we've seen recently, Allen may be left to defend himself with only a few friends on this one.

Speaking of Fox, though, one friend Allen appears to have? Sean Hannity. Of course, this is no surprise. Hannity has been talking up Allen for 2008 for over a year now. Just like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, Hannity would rather eat a live shark than admit he was wrong. Monday night, on Hannity and Colmes, Hannity barely commented on it. He said it was ridiculous and moved on. Probably the better move by conservatives: pretend it didn't happen. However, I doubt many people will let Allen forget this for a while.

Comments

What do you think of Fox's response? (DanG - 8/15/2006 1:22:34 PM)

I want to know what you feel about this short article. Here's the link:

http://www.foxnews.c...

It's the AP story with about all content cut out of it (Doug Garnett-Deakin - 8/15/2006 1:28:22 PM)

This is not a big, multi-paragraph sort of site (or multisyllabic for that matter).

Nice, but will they spin it later? (RayH - 8/15/2006 1:35:46 PM)

I expect that if this story continues in the MSM, conservative operatives will try to spin it as a liberal whine-fest, or some other BS.

We will do well to keep pressure on them to (1) report the straight story of Allen's bigotry (2)engage Webb

"Campaign staffers (kevinceckowski - 8/15/2006 2:15:19 PM)

nicknamed him Mohawk"? When I think of campaign staffers, I think of Mary, Dick, Chris, Ed, and maybe a handful of others. Paid, as in STAFFERS?

To think they would stand around and have the time to make up nicknames for people attending their speaking tour is beyond belief. It was an ELEPHANTGAFFE. It was RACIST!

I hope the Republican donors can see that they are wasting their time on a looser and turn to Jim Webb for some real leadership, and fiscal backbone.

The other slur? (PM - 8/15/2006 1:32:39 PM)

NLS says he has a second one. I thought the reference to Hollywood moguls was code when I read it yesterday. It's a traditional right-wing slur. Read the Media Matters article entitled "Limbaugh claimed Ahmadinejad letter to Bush contained ,liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point'"
at: http://mediamatters....

Just Google "hollywood moguls" with words like antisemitism, Jewish, liberal, etc., and see how many hits you get.

It's "inside the beltway" (PM - 8/15/2006 1:37:50 PM)

I see that NLS says it is "inside the beltway"

Hmmmm. Nah, I think that just refers to inside the beltway mentality, i.e., where people who work in DC think their work is the most impt. thing in the world.

Agree (Arlington Mike - 8/15/2006 2:31:24 PM)

Agree, this one is reaching too much. "Macaca" is all wrong, but "inside the Beltway" is a typical reference to being too Washington-focused.

you know (Matt in VA - 8/15/2006 1:36:43 PM)

at some point fox news is going to have to decide whether they stand for republicanism or making money off people hearing what they want to hear. despite the fact that this is favorable coverage politically, the fact that fox news has injected the media into an axis of spin and biased commentary is why I watch Jim Lehrer.

The Elephant is in the room (kevinceckowski - 8/15/2006 1:56:24 PM)

and Hannity is probably pro McCain now.

Am damn (ooh, can I say that) sure the elephant is IN THE ROOM! Conservatives can ignore it all they want, but this elephant is in the room and he is mighty big and dumb.

Poor George FAllen.

who cares about fox (pvogel - 8/15/2006 3:23:37 PM)

They are just the beaureourx of truth, the ministry of propaganda, the bed of lies

Agreed, they're pretty pathetic (DanG - 8/15/2006 4:06:30 PM)

But when the stop coddling Allen, you start to get an idea about how serious this is!

Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, and Olbermann (phriendlyjaime - 8/15/2006 8:04:11 PM)

all showed it the way we all see it.

It's not just the liberal WaPo today, is it? :)