Senator George Allen's "macaca" comment was a typical boob approach to racism. Instead of calling opposition photographer Sidarth by one of the standard racist epithets for dark-skinned people, Sen. Allen thought that he would use a fancy French term for blacks that "no one would recognize."
Like it was his little secret!
This is almost precisely what it means to be a boob, to think that you're the smartest person in the room while you're making an idiot of yourself. Sen. Allen thought he was demonstrating his racial superiority, thought he was entertaining his all-white audience, and thought he was scoring points while he was NOT noticing that Sidarth was holding a camera and recording the whole soliloguy.
In a Slate article, John Dickerson treats George Allen as comparable to President Bush. That's unfair to Bush. Whatever the failures that make Bush one of the worst presidents in Americn history, Pres. Bush has too much "message discipline" to be caught making that kind of racist comment on camera even if he feels that way in private (and I don't think he does).
Perhaps the worst thing you can say about George Allen is that he is a much bigger boob than George Bush.
Not that such a thing would stop the Republicans from nominating him.
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