As people start looking beyond the midterm elections towards 2008, there’s one name that keeps popping up.

HANNITY: Who do you see that holds the Reagan mantle that you’d like to see run and win?
. . .
LIMBAUGH: Is there another Ronald Reagan out there? I don’t know, I don’t see one right on the horizon. But there’s only one Ronald Reagan.

But now you’re asking me for a name? You want a name?

HANNITY: You got one?

LIMBAUGH: It’s early. The danger with mentioning names is that you hurt the feelings of people that you leave out. I’m going to leave some people out because of time constraints, but when I hear George Allen speak, there’s a part of me, “Yes, rah-rah.”

Who is George Allen? Well, he’s a Senator and former governor of Virginia, but he’s also a rising star in the Republican party who’s got a disturbing past :

Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room. He said it was part of a flag collection–and had been removed at the start of his gubernatorial bid. When it was learned that he kept a noose hanging on a ficus tree in his law office, he said it was part of a Western memorabilia collection. These explanations may be sincere. But, as a chief executive, he also compiled a controversial record on race. In 1994, he said he would accept an honorary membership at a Richmond social club with a well-known history of discrimination–an invitation that the three previous governors had refused. After an outcry, Allen rejected the offer. He replaced the only black member of the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors with a white one. He issued a proclamation drafted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month. The text celebrated Dixie’s “four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights.” There was no mention of slavery.
. . .
Politically, Allen’s years in Palos Verdes were dominated by the lingering racial tensions from the riots in nearby Watts in 1965–when that neighborhood was practically burned to the ground–and the nationwide riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which left other parts of Southern California in flames. It is with that context in mind that four former classmates and one former administrator at Allen’s high school described to me an event for which Allen is most remembered–and the first glimpse that the château-raised Californian might grow up to become a defender of the South’s heritage.

It was the night before a major basketball game with Morningside High. The mostly black inner-city school adjacent to Watts was coming to the almost entirely white Palos Verdes High to play. When students arrived at school on game day, they found graffiti spray-painted on the school library and other places. All five people who described the incident say the graffiti was racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students. But it was actually put there by Allen and some of his friends. “It was something like die whitey,” says Campbell. The school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would “seriously consider” voting for Allen for president, says the graffiti said, “burn, baby, burn,” a reference to the race riots.

I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt and I do think people shouldn’t necessarily have to spend their entire lives apologizing for dumb shit they did as teenagers, but you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere and for me, trying to incite a race riot is unforgivable. Especially considering that Allen’s love for Confederacy hasn’t waned more than 30 years later. When compared to somebody like Sen. Byrd, who’s also got some racist skeletons in his closet, I haven’t seen much to indicate that George Allen has tried to make amends for his past. Jesus Christ, having a noose hanging from a tree in his office?! How can there be any doubt in people’s minds that George Allen is still a racist scumbag?

Before you chalk this up as another Republican who’s a closet bigot, let me remind you of Allen’s enormous popularity within the party :

With visions of 2008 dancing in their heads, National Journal ’s political insiders made their parties’ picks for the presidential nod and came up with two senators, one seemingly obvious and one seemingly unlikely: Hillary Rodham Clinton and George Allen .

This week’s survey combined both the political and congressional respondents — 85 Republicans and 90 Democrats in all — and gave each potential White House contender five points for a first-place vote, four points for a second-place vote and so on. The New York Democrat ran away with her party’s vote, collecting 407 points and 68 first places. The Virginia Republican’s tally was smaller, with 229 points. His 19 first places tied with Arizona Sen. John McCain , whose points totaled 217.

That matchup raises a perennial question: How important is name recognition, even three years out? Although insiders know Allen — one said he was “Reagan-like in his appeal to GOP activists”; another called him a “real dark horse who should not be underestimated” — he might make voters scratch their heads.

If the Republican party was serious about putting its legacy of racism behind them (Southern Strategy, Dixiecrats, neo-Confederates, etc.) and truly believed Chairman Ken Mehlman’s vow that it’s “not healthy for the country for our political parties to be so racially polarized”, party leaders wouldn’t be caught dead with a guy like George Allen. The remarkable thing isn’t just that Allen is welcome in the party (which can be explained away with meaningless rhetoric about having a “big tent”), but that this race-baiting, Confederate flag-waving bigot is considered a party leader. This is the guy the GOP wants to represent them in the election that will mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the passing of the Civil Rights Act?

Josh Marshall has a revealing view into where the Republicans’ priorities lie this year :

It all started earlier this evening when TPM Reader HH was on the receiving end of one of Dole’s blast emails begging contributions for the Republican senate committee.

Says Dole, in her pitch: “If Democrats take control of the Senate in ‘06, they will cancel the Bush tax cuts, allow liberal activist judges to run our courts and undermine all Republican efforts to win the War on Terror. Even worse …” Now, here you know it’s got to be bad. Even I got a little worried and considered sending in some money since losing the War on Terror for America would already be a pretty bad thing for the Democrats to do. But … well, let’s rejoin Dole in mid-moonbat. “Even worse, they will call for endless congressional investigations and possibly call for the impeachment of President Bush!”

Even worse than undermining the War on Terror is the possibility of “investigations”. Wow. It makes sense that the GOP would be so terrified since they’re the ones who made the term “investigation” synonymous with “partisan witch-hunt”. Don’t worry, Sen. Dole. Just because your party is full of people who use the wheels of government to destroy their political enemies doesn’t mean everyone wants to short change the American people in an endless quest for power and money. Even if the Democrats won back both houses of Congress, they’d never in a million years be able to match the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the Starr Investigation.

It’s nice to see that the Army is calling in the big guns to help them defeat insurgents in Iraq (via Brandoland) :

In a 1,000-square-mile region on the edge of Death Valley, Arab-Americans, many of them from the Iraqi expatriate community in San Diego, populate a group of mock villages resembling their counterparts in Iraq. American soldiers at forward operating bases nearby face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheadings in underground tunnels. Recently, the soldiers here, like their counterparts in Iraq, have been confronted with Sunni-Shiite riots. At one village, a secret guerrilla revolt is in the works.

With actors and stuntmen on loan from Hollywood, American generals have recast the training ground at Fort Irwin so effectively as a simulation of conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 months that some soldiers have left with battle fatigue and others have had their orders for deployment to the war zones canceled. In at least one case, a soldier’s career was ended for unnecessarily “killing” civilians.
. . .
It is a marriage of military technology and Hollywood fakery; some 350 Arabic-speaking Iraqi-Americans and plainclothes Nevada National Guardsman live here almost year-round to offer American trainees what one officer described as “a vortex of chaos.” The insurgents even get acting lessons, coached by Carl Weathers, best known for his portrayal of the boxer Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” films.

That’s right, the Carl Weathers. As anyone with good taste in TV can tell you, he’s one of the greatest acting teachers in the world.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you’ve got a stew going.”

I’ve been uploading a bunch of old campaign ads to my YouTube account today. One of my favorites is this one from the 2000 primary in which Bushie shows what a crybaby he is over something John McCain said :

If that’s “over the line”, what do you call starting a whisper campaign alleging that your opponent’s adopted daughter is the love-child of a prostitute? In a 2000 interview, McCain once said of the people behind the smear “I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.”, but even that wasn’t enough to keep tough guy McCain from jumping into hyper-partisan mode four years later.



Keep in mind that McCain spoke the words “he has led with great moral clarity” a month and a half after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. McCain’s firm stand against torture had to wait until after the 2004 election.

If you wanna see all of the videos I’ve uploaded (along with my comments), click here. You definitely don’t want to miss the 2000 campaign ad that begins with Bush saying “we need to encourage personal responsibility so people are accountable for their actions”. I couldn’t agree more, Mr. President.

Since I recently suggested a campaign ad for the Democrats, it’s only fair that I do one for the Republicans as well. What do you think?

“C’mon, don’t be mad. You know I still love you..”

Speaking in Spanish. The President was for it before he was against it. From last week’s press conference :

Q Mr. President, a cultural question for you. There is a version of the National Anthem in Spanish now. Do you believe it will hold the same value if sung in Spanish as in English?

THE PRESIDENT: No I don’t, because I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English.

Oh really?? Is that why you’ve spent so much money on Spanish-language advertising like this?

Apparently George Bush has decided that this year it’s more important to kiss xenophobic, conservative asses than hard-working, Latino asses.

Stephen Colbert meets George W. Bush, for real. Watch these in order. Part One, Part Two, Part Three. I gotta give credit to Colbert for being able to stay in character during this whole speech. I’d last a minute or two before climbing on a soap box, which is a shame because Colbert probably burst the President’s bubble more than anyone since the 2004 debates. King George looked mortified.