Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Then there is the next Republican bracket, the double standard sex predators, led by Mark Foley.  The number of Moral Values Party members in uncomfortable postures regarding sex continues to increase with Don Sherwood and Arnold "the new progressive" Schwarzenegger, and former House leader J.C. Watts, to name but a few.

That speed bump began assuming mountainous proportions for George Allen when, at a political rally, he became irritated with a supporter of rival candidate James Webb and used a racial slur, "maccaca."  Allen denied that the remark was an intended racial slur and amounted to no more than a careless slip.

There must have been a churning nervousness within Allen, however, in view of past concerns about the confederate battle flag in his home, which he sought to dismiss as nothing more than an old relic that held no ideological significance.  

After that a question arose about a noose hanging on the wall alongside the flag, which appeared to resemble an eerie form of symbolism.

As the maccaca furor continued a former football teammate of Allen at Virginia University, Dr. Ken Shelton, entered the scene.  

A radiologist by profession, Shelton recalled an incident from their gridiron days when he played tight end and wide receiver for Virginia University during the early seventies and Allen played quarterback.

Shelton claimed that not only had Allen used the N-word frequently, but that he had also played a sick racist prank by stuffing a severed deer head into a black family's mailbox.  

"George insisted on taking the severed head, and I was a little shocked by that," Dr. Shelton told the Associated Press.  "This was just after the movie `The Godfather' came out with the severed horse's head in the bed."

Republican apologists began denouncing Dr. Shelton, asserting that the third person that had been said to be aware of the incident was now dead.  They also wanted to know why Shelton had waited so long to reveal the story.  

These are the same carefully probative evidence demanders that accept on blind faith anything doled out by Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly.

Shelton exhibited self-disgust over sitting on the information for so long.  He explained that the catalyst for ultimately coming forward was the fear that George F. Allen stood on the precipice of becoming a serious candidacy for the presidency.  Shelton explained that he had no idea when Allen launched his political career that he would ever get this far.

The concerned radiologist was soon joined by another highly credible professional, no less a personage than one of the nation's leading political scientists, Larry Sabato, who teaches at the University of Virginia and had been a student contemporary of both Allen and Shelton.  Sabato confirmed that Allen had indeed laced conversation during the period with the N-word.

The blogger known as Lambert who writes on the Corrente Wire Internet site sees a bizarre animal fixation in today's Republican Party:

"Somehow, I think all these weird animal incidents say a lot about today's Republican party: If you've sensed a certain lack of empathy in the leadership - blowing up frogs by shoving firecrackers up their ass then lighting the fuse, (Bush as a child), stealing cats from shelters, treating them as pets, and then dissecting them (Frist), using Terry Schiavo's dead body as a political football (the whole party), forced pregnancy (the whole party), state-sanctioned torture (Bush, then the whole party) - maybe basic sadism is at the root of it all."

When Allen hoped that the maccaca flap was behind him and he would be able to campaign the rest of the way without serious mishap it was revealed that he failed to disclose to Congress that he owned stock options in a Virginia high tech company.  Such a failure to disclose this type of information constitutes a violation of Senate rules.

The very receipt of such options in the form of 15,000 shares of stock in Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc. after serving on its board of directors between the end of his term as governor and election to the Senate reveals a potential conflict of interest on the part of a public official grabbing money between terms of service as governor and senator.

The issued shares would appear to take on the appearance of a reward for services rendered in the past and anticipated to resume in the future.

Ah, but Senator Allen had sought to dismiss arising concerns about impropriety by telling the Associated Press, "I got paid for stock options which were worthless."

The Internet site Carpetbagger Report provided the following observation:

"Bloomberg (the major Internet business site) reported today (October 10): Stock options that Senator George Allen described as worthless were worth as much as $1.1 million at one point, according to a review of Senate disclosure forms and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings."

Does the Allen merry-go-round of misadventure end there?  Hardly, the worst is yet to come.  We go from racism to ethical misadventure to goon squad activity.  In the manner of a political dictator or mob boss, Allen has his own trained cadre of ruffians.

Blogger Mike Stark found out this stark fact when he sought to inquire of Allen about his arrest record from the seventies.  Allen held up a cautioning hand and muttered something to the effect of "I'm not going there" when the violence commenced and the goon squad began pummeling Stark, knocking him to the ground.  

It seems that Allen, rather than imploring his thugs masquerading as security guards to cease their efforts, instead remained nonchalant through it all and did nothing.  Stark sustained injuries and announced his intention afterwards to sue Allen.

As Allen has watched a large lead fade away, he appears to be on the same type of automatic pilot as he was when his goon squad viciously assaulted Stark.  In a recent television debate with Webb he phlegmatically recited platitudes that were canned Republican responses from the past.

As one commenting blogger, DeepDarkDiamond, wrote on October 10:

"I watched most of the debate last night and he was really weird - he kept to a mantra of `defending' marriage, that Webb and liberals will raise taxes and trying to paint Webb as in cahoots with Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.  It was totally a one-note show and was from the same playbook that any Republican could have used since 1994."

There is still more!  Allen is like the comedian, albeit unintentionally, who has such an endless repertoire that even he is unaware of just how far his momentum will sustain him.  In an effort to persuade progressive feminist style Northern Virginia types to vote for him Allen has recently taken opponent Webb to task for his fiction writing.

Webb actually included sex scenes in his books, an alarmed Allen disclosed.  Did Allen ever upbraid the patriarch of American conservatism, William F. Buckley, for graphic sex romp depictions involving his spy adventurer Bradford Oakes?

It remained, however, for Lynne Cheney, self-proclaimed Republican moralist, to enter the fray.  The wife of the noted Chicken Hawk from Halliburton appeared on CNN to douse herself with Republican holy water as she denounced James Webb for writing novels including, God forbid, sex scenes!

Interviewer Wolf Blitzer promptly squelched Cheney's developing morality play by reminding her about her own racy novel that included plenty of explicit lesbian sex scenes.  (Maybe there was also some professional jealousy involved since Webb's work attained bestseller status while Cheney's gathered dust in warehouses.)

Cheney, who should have realized how vulnerable she was given her own track record, was aghast at Blitzer's comment and proclaimed that her work was artistic and Webb's was, well, just salacious.

So for those of you who will still blindly vote for Allen and other Cheney-Bush style Republicans on Tuesday, my wish is that we could provide you all with your own island remote from everybody else in the world.    

You would be provided with no nuclear weapons since they could harm others, especially given Bush's past reputation extending from frogs in his youth to Iraq in what is proclaimed to be his adulthood.  

There would be no Democrats on this island and so, alas, you loyal Republicans would ultimately have nothing left to do than to begin conspiring against and ultimately doing battle with each other.  

A videotape of that kind of splendid, albeit offbeat, fun would outdo the likes of Survivor and Fear Factor!