The President's New Direction

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff objects to WUSA-TV reporter Peggy Fox asking the senator whether his mother was Jewish:

"Such a question is plainly out-of-bounds. Has any candidate in the modern era ever been asked by a respectable interviewer about the religion of his 'forbears?' Our Constitution, for good reason, bans religious tests for public office. It may nonetheless be legitimate under some circumstances to ask a candidate how his or her religious views might affect decisions (as Mitt Romney no doubt will be asked many times). But what legitimate basis can there be for injecting the religion of a candidate's grandfather into a campaign? And if that is legitimate, what's next -- a question about whether a candidate's forebears include African-Americans?

"The unprecedented and un-American nature of Fox's question, coupled with the reference to Allen's middle name of Felix which the Webb people had already been making something of, causes one to wonder whether Fox was acting in concert with the Webb campaign or at a minimum acting on her own to advance its interests. To Fox and to the campaign it might have seemed that asking the question was a win-win proposition. Allen could say that his grandfather was Jewish, which Fox and/or the campaign might view as hurting Allen with some religious conservative voters. Allen could refuse to answer, in which case Webb's people could accuse him of being a racist who is ashamed of his Jewish connection. And Allen might get angry and provide some unflattering video the Webb campaign could use.

"Allen did refuse to answer the question, and he did get angry. However, it's far from clear that, in the context of the highly offensive nature of the question, his anger will be held against him."

Josh Marshall blames the senator and his original macaca explanation:

"This whole brouhaha, including the question that set Allen off, got rolling because of Allen's preposterous claim and the reporter's question about whether he'd learned the word from his mother.

"It may not be pretty. But it's all the fruit of Allen's lies."

At Daily Kos, Lowell Feld at Daily Kos, the blogger for Democratic challenger Jim Webb, rips Allen for dumping on Peggy Fox:

"Why would he say that the reporter's question was 'making aspersions about people because of their religious beliefs?' What in the reporter's question did that? I'm Jewish myself, and very sensitive to anti-Semitism, and I heard NOTHING anti-Semitic in there.

"Also, getting back to Allen's almost violent reaction to the question, why would George Allen 'furiously' attack the female reporter, in front of hundreds of his supporters no less (encouraging them to jeer and boo her), for simply asking him about his heritage? What in that question would prompt George Allen to react in such a way as to leave the female reporter 'frightened' and 'shocked' that Allen would 'get so angry at the suggestion there might be something in [his] background that's Jewish?'

"In other words, as much as Allen supporters try to make this all about the oh-so-mean woman reporter and her horrible, crazy question, this isn't about her at all. Peggy Fox isn't running for U.S. Senate. George Allen is. So, whether you liked that question or not (personally, I didn't see it anything to get angry about; it's like asking Jim Webb about his Scots-Irish ancestry or any of us about our ancestors), this is all about George Allen -- why he gets so angry so often, why he is so prone to attacking those he sees as weak and/or threatening, etc.

"As another famous Jew, Sigmund Freud, might have said in this situation, George Allen appears to have some deep-seated 'issues' regarding his Jewish heritage -- and regarding many other things as well."