Foot in Mouth Epidemic

So, Senator George Felix Allen has thrown away a large lead over Reagan Democrat Jim Webb because he called a campaign volunteer “macaca” twice within a minute to a crowd in SW Virginia. “Macaca” being a word French Tunisians (including his mother) know as a racial slur against North Africans. This on the heels of Allen well-publicized obsession with the Confederacy … even though he’s a native of California and has no family history to excuse such an interest beyond old fashioned racism. Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that Allen is only pretending to be racist so he can get elected with the help of wingnuts in rural areas.

After all, Katherine Harris of the Florida debacle fame has just recently called on Florida to elect more Christians otherwise we might “legislate sin”. She also called the separation of church and state “a lie we’ve been told”. I don’t know what’s more appalling, her saying those sorts of things, or her spinning those comments as meant only for that Christian group. What’s worse – calling non-Christians sinners, or dismissing it as ordinary pandering?

Republicans … the gift to late night comics that just keeps on giving.