October 14, 2008
Does Virginia Cause Foot in Mouth Disease?
In the world of politics, nearly every elected official or civic leader has at one point said something stupid, regrettable, insulting or downright confounding. But in recent years, well-known personalities in Virginia have had a disproportionate number of serious flubs, many of which have become national scandals.
The mother of all these foot-in-the-mouth moments is surely George Allen's infamous 2006 "macaca" comment. Caught on tape and beamed to a national audience via YouTube, the insensitive remark helped propel challenger Jim Webb to victory, thus pushing the Senate into Democratic hands and further pushing Virginia toward the crucial swing state that it is today. Just a few months later, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) made national headlines when he criticized Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) for using the Koran during his swearing-in ceremony. Though Ellison, who was the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, was already something of a star, the controversy with Goode made him a nationally recognized figure.
More recently, John McCain's brother caused some commotion when he referred to Northern Virginia as "communist country" during a rally in Northern Virginia. Bobby May, the McCain campaign chair in Buchanan County, drew fire when he published an op-ed saying that Obama would "raise taxes to pay for free drugs for [his] inner-city political base" and "raise taxes to send $845 billion, most of it to Africa so the Obama family there can skim off enough for them to free their goats and live the American Dream." (McCain removed May from his position during the ensuing uproar.) And just last week, the chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia, Jeff Frederick, provoked a still ongoing scandal when he equated Barack Obama with Osama Bin Laden.
So we know Virginia is a hotly contested state and the Republican Party is struggling to keep it red, but is there something we're missing here? What's with Virginia and major political gaffes?
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So we know Virginia is a hotly contested state and the Republican Party is struggling to keep it red
I think that says it all. Rich white people don't like giving up their influence and power, we shouldn't be surprised that it's getting ugly. Allen, Goode, May and Frederick's comments (like Palin, Keating, etc on the national stage) show their desperation to keep the GOP's blood sucking grip on the state and country.
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If you think VA pols have a monopoly on saying clueless crap, you need to spend more time in DC City Council meetings. And who can forget the timeless, "If you don't count the murders, DC actually has a very low crime rate."
To paraphrase Tyler, the $h!t that comes out of their mouths, you would not believe.
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For years, Singapore had the world's highest rate of reported white collar crime. It's not that Singapore's business community was exceptionally dishonest; it's that Singapore's law enforcement community and media both made serious efforts to ferret out white collar crime, and defendants went to trial instead of plea-bargaining their way out of a criminal charge. Whereas in, say, Indonesia, white collar crime was likely far more prevalent than in Singapore, but it was rarely caught and almost never punished.
Virginia is analogous to Singapore here. Sure, crazy stuff happens, but you have a passably aggressive media and Democratic Party to make some noise, so the craziness gets reported. Whereas South Carolina or Alabama or Tennessee are more like Indonesia; chances are, there's craziness afoot that makes Virginia's political dialogue sound like the Federalist Papers, but you'll never know.
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What, no mention of Jim Moron's numerous anti-Semitic remarks?
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not to defend anything any of these people have said, but if it weren't for the media and for youtube, we might not even hear about half of the stupid things people say. if george allen had called that kid macaca in 1966, it would have been forgotten about the next day.
my coffee hasn't kicked in yet so i'm not sounding very intelligent, but you know what i mean. 24/7 news and immediate access to video clips makes exploiting every little slip of the tongue very simple, whereas obviously 40, 30, 20, maybe even 10 years ago, this crap would have been forgotten about the next week. and now two years later we still remember macaca like it happened yesterday.
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Funny thing considering McCain grew up in NoVa. He went to the exclusive Episcopal boarding school on Seminary road just off off Rt 7 and 395.
I'm so sick of these fucking douchebags talking smack about people from inside the beltway when that's exactly where they're all from.
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good point msto, but let me add to that as i start my second cup of coffee...
technology
+
time in history (like, totally ok to smack your secretary on the bum in 66 but taboo today)
+
everyone has an agenda (from the media who exposes/exploits these slips of the tongue to the kid who uploads them to youtube
....
and it's good that these things are remembered as they're less likely to be repeated. but, as they're replayed, it's too easy to compound their levity. but whatev, that's life, even for us who aren't recorded ...or aren't we
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What, no mention of Jim Moron's numerous anti-Semitic remarks?
Anti-Zionist expansionism does not equal anti-semitism.
Good try though
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@Kev29
I don't care if he critiques Israel's policies, I'd likely agree with it. But numerous times Moran has said that "the Jews" wage too much control over foreign policy. He also said that "strong support of the Jewish community" led us to the War in Iraq, and blames "wealthy Jews" who exert too much media influence through AIPAC. That isn't critiquing Israel's policies, that's blatant anti-Semitism.
But nice try, though.
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Seems to me that it's more the case of Republicans being assholes(like usual), than Virginia being the cause.
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cminus: good point. basically, we notice it because we're next door, and DC is home to a lot of TV cameras, etc.
i'm sure there's just as much crazy in south dakota, but it sure as hell doesn't get the coverage that VA does. it's all about proximity.
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Kev29 and aaronsinger: Try as you may, none of your comments meet the guidelines necessary for invoking Godwin's Law.
Nice tries, though.
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Hahahaha.
I was just trying to bring another VA politician to the entry.
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I think it is crazy that we trust them as much as we do! C'mon people, it's crazy. Once the capital of the Confederasuh, always the capital of trouble. They were the original insurgents bee-atch with a long history trying to destroy this country. Thus the plethora of Palin signs in the yards (see: path to independence party). I think we should erect a wall along the Potomac before it gets out of control. They are in our back yard people!!
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No mention of the current governor who doesn't even know that Virginia doesn't border Delaware.
But he's a Democrat so no surprise it got little media attention.
I say that's the bigotry of low expectations...just because people assume Democrats are morons does not mean they shouldn't be called out on it. I'm also looking at you Al Sharpton you sack of @#%!