Posted on 09/27/2006 7:42:34 AM PDT by truthandlife
One of Virginia's best-known political analysts said he had never personally heard Sen. George Allen use racial epithets, despite saying on television a day earlier that the senator "did use the n-word."
Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press, "I didn't personally hear GFA (Allen's initials) say the n-word.
"My conclusion is based on the very credible testimony I have heard for weeks, mainly from people I personally know and knew in the '70s," Sabato wrote.
Sabato, a classmate of Allen's at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s, said Monday on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" that he knew Allen had used racial slurs, but declined to say whether he had witnessed them.
Allen, a Republican who had been mentioned as a presidential contender and is now fighting an unexpectedly difficult race for a second U.S. Senate term, had said through a campaign aide that Sabato's claim was inaccurate.
"We're obviously glad that Mr. Sabato clarified his comments," said Dick Wadhams, Allen's campaign manager. "We remain committed to trying to dispel these erroneous stories that have been out there."
Also Tuesday, Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, declined to say definitively whether he had ever used a racial slur to describe blacks.
"I don't think that there's anyone who grew up around the South that hasn't had the word pass through their lips at one time or another in their life," Webb told reporters.
Webb referred to his novel, "Fields of Fire," which aides said includes passages using the n-word as part of character dialogue. But he added: "I have never issued a racial or ethnic slur."
Asked for clarification of his original answer, spokeswoman Jessica Smith quoted Webb as saying, "I have never used that word in my general vocabulary or in any derogatory way."
She declined to say whether he had ever used the word apart from when he wrote his book.
Allegations of racial insensitivity by Allen dating to his high school days in California have become a major distraction for the senator since August, when he called a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent "macaca." The word is considered a racial slur in some cultures.
On Monday, a former football teammate of Allen's, Dr. Ken Shelton, said he heard Allen frequently use a common slur applied to blacks among white friends while in college. Allen called the claim "ludicrously false" and released statements from four other ex-teammates defending the senator and rejecting Shelton's claims.
Also in interviews with the AP and Salon.com late Sunday, Shelton claimed that on a hunting trip to Louisa County in 1973 or 1974, Allen stuffed the severed head of a female deer into the oversized mailbox of a black household near Bumpass, Va., 40 miles east of the university.
But in interviews Tuesday, two Louisa County sheriff's deputies who were on the force in the early '70s said that they recall no complaints about severed animal heads.
Retired Lt. Robert Rigsby said he was in charge of investigations in the early '70s, and any such report would have gone through him.
"I think that's a myth," Rigsby said.
I agree with you, but did you ever hear Lyndon Johnson trying to pronounce "ni-ni-niggro"?
It's like peeling an onion, debunking one layer of rumours at a time. If you can make it to the center, there is nothing left--and hopefully no more innuendo.
Obviously the left panicked and needed to find someone who would lie about Allen. It happens a lot. The left is desperate to win, by any means necessary.
Whenever there is a "revelation" like this about a conservative, you know that it is a lie.
>don't blame larry, this is Senator Allen's fault. BS!!<
You mean he didn't say it was also Bush's Fault©? Dang, he's slipping!
>Let me guess: Allen was one of the "in crowd" and Sabato wasn't.<
If I'm not mistaken, Sabato was known as somewhat of a young political prodigy early on. He's been pretty well known in Virginia for decades, as a political prognosticator.
A lot of politically active teens and young adults are looked upon as sort of nerdish by their peers.
He may not have liked being the authority that buttressed the claims in skeptic's minds.
-PJ
ROFL!
I'm going to pray for Senator Allen, and hope that his enemies get theirs.
It wasn't all Scots and English around here.
It was long overdue for a change.
Yes, that's completely true. Taliaferro comes to mind. But they were early and became an accepted part of the state upper class. Lots of French Huguenots came over around 1700 and many of them anglicized their names. There were others as well. But chances are--and they are just chances--that a given Italian in 1970 was not from one of these early families, but came from later immigrants. But you are completely right in saying that it was not all Scots and English who built the upper class of the state. Or the middle and lower class for that matter!
Larry, I have credible testimony that you are a turd burgler.
He also loves to see/hear himself on TV.
Presumably a third group checked the "middle" and hence the settlement in Maryland.
Many Huguenots are late comers. My own people are among those who arrived rather early.
BTW, when Jamestown was founded the former Spanish settlement at the mission at Hopewell, Virginia, disbanded and most of them moved to Jamestown and signed up with the Episcopal church. The actual notes kept by a Spaniard named Cruz. He disappears from the records just at the time the Crews family shows up. There were others. Unfortunately the Virginia Company records were destroyed.
Be fun to decode them ~ as well as those of the Polish slaves (read captured Turks).
In digging through secondary sources concerning early Virginia settlement we found a reference made by the guys who came right after Smith and Argall to the effect that they believed there were more than 20,000 European people living in what is now Maryland when Jamestown was founded.
Remember that the area had been a pirate's refuge in the 1500s.
Thank you for the VA info. Genealogy is my hobby, but I haven't been working recently at it like I once did. My entire family is from Virginia. I'll have to go back at the latest to the early 1800's, and probably much before, to move out of the state--on all of my lines. Yep, my ancestors married each other until about two generations ago. I knew about an early Huguenot settlement in SC, DeSoto and of course, the melungeons. I've read Carl Bridenbaugh's works on early VA settlements. But I didn't know about the Spanish mission who went with the Episcopal church. I'd like to find out more. The name Crews marries into my family a lot later. I also know that a map of early VA was found in some Spanish archives some time in the last century. I'd like to know more about Bo. Although I'm mostly very early English (I think probably from Devon, although I can't prove it), I could well trace back to early Huguenots as well. Thank you for an informative post.
I didn't know about the Venicians. I know that the Talioferros went from Italy to London and then eventually to VA. I think that some very early Turks could have married into the group that became the melungeons, although that could be Jewish and/or Portuguese groups. Or all of the above. Have you read Lee Miller's book about Roanoke? It's very good. Didn't know about early Maryland Europeans. If my ancestors came from any other state, it will probably be Maryland. So I've wondered about the earliest settlers there.
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