Tart words from TPM Reader NF …
Josh, It is clear to me and should be to others that George Allen is lying when he claims that he just found out about his Jewish ancestry from a “recent” news article. I think this revelation may actually go a long way in explaining Mr. Allen’s public persona. He apparently believes that he must over compensate with the good ‘ol white boy routine for what he obviously seems to think is an unfortunate fact about his parentage. He stated during the debate that his mother had some “Spanish” in her background. I think this was his own code word for “Sephardic,” as in Jews from Spain. His comments are even more laughable when he claims he was taught to abhor bigotry. People who abhor bigotry do not place confederate flags on their vehicles or hang nooses in their offices. This guy is a self-hating head case. And that is what makes him dangerous as a public office holder.
This is a fairly rough take on the matter. But I don’t see any other interpretation of Allen’s claim that he just found out his mother’s family was Jewish. Many non-Jews were imprisoned in German concentration and death camps during World War II. But given that Allen has long known that his grandfather (after whom he’s named) spent part of World War II in a Nazi concentration camp (or as Allen rather distantly phrases it, “was incarcerated by the Nazis”), it really does strain credulity to believe that the idea that he might be Jewish never crossed his mind.
Late Update: A reader helpfully reminded me of this post from August by TNR’s Ryan Lizza. Bob Gibson, a veteran columnist for the Charlottesville Daily Progress told Ryan …
It’s funny, but the only time that George Allen ever wanted a correction from me in 27 years of covering his races was when I wrote about his mother’s Jewish family origins. He insisted, through a press secretary, that his mother was raised a Christian.
Yep, sure sounds like the idea never occurred to him.
