Both reporters and Democrats (but I repeat myself ... *ba-da-bing!* Thank you, I’ll be here all week) are bringing religion into the US Senate race in Virginia and in what looks like an ugly way. The Republican incumbent is Sen. George Allen. He was dinged earlier this summer for making a crack about a member of his opponent’s campaign that could be interpreted as a racial slur. Then, during a debate earlier this week, one of the questioners asked Allen a strange question. She mentioned the racial crack and then, in a seeming tangent, brings up the question whether Allen’s ancestors were Jewish on his mother’s side.
She says that it has been reported that his mother’s father was Jewish, although his mother was not and says: “Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?”
Is this an attempt to incite redneck anti-Semitism? What does Allen’s grandfather’s religion have to do with this election campaign? This particular situation stood out when I saw it because I have similar ancestry. My mother’s father was a Jew who married a French Canadian Catholic girl. My mother was raised Catholic. My great-grandfather was a rabbi from the Crimea who escaped the Cossacks at the turn of the century by taking his family to America. I’m proud of my Jewish ancestors, but I don’t see what having them has to do with who I am today or what I stand for.
I believe Allen handled himself well in his response. The crowd booed and he said, “You know what, I’m glad you all have that reaction. You know what our first freedom in our country was? Freedom of religion ... To be getting into what religion my mother is, I don’t think is relevant.” He then turns on the questioner and says, “I would like to ask you: why is that relevant?” He then says she was raised as a Christian, if she must know and the questioner responds, “Honestly that’s just all.” Allen is visibly upset as he says back, “Oh that’s just all.”
That same reporter, a local news reader named Peggy Fox, also tried to dig into whether Allen had learned the supposed slur, “macaca,” from his mother. Insinuating someone’s mother is a racist and bringing up someone’s possible religious heritage is really low.
There’s also some question, too, whether the “Jew” whispers actually originated in the campaign of Allen’s opponent, James Webb, and among the “nutroots” lefty blogs.
But it’s conservatives who are supposed to be racists and bigots. Right.
Technorati Tags:Allen, anti-Semitism, debates, Jews, Judaism, Senate, Virginia
Allen is stupidly attacking Marine vet James Webb for opposing the desegregation of the military academies and the accompanying political feminism in the military.
Allen’s played the sexist card, so it’s not suprising that others are trying to suggest bigotry in his own past.
Ready for this? The person who lives across the hall from me justifies it by saying the woman was trying to expose him as a racist, which makes zero sense.
Very European thinking on the reporter’s end. In America, where many kids don’t even know who their father was trying to tie a man to a religion that his grandfather practiced is ridiculous.