Yesterday the Washington Post endorsed Representative Ben Cardin in the Democratic primary for Senator to replace retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes. I'd venture that for those who are looking for continuity this is a good thing. It would appear that Card...

Macaca (also written as macaque) is a dismissive epithet used by Francophone colonials in Africa for native populations of North and Subsaharan Africans.[1] It is derived from the name of the genus comprised of the macaque primates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaca

Front page style section with a large notice of the piece below the fold on the front page is my bet.

So says James Joyner:
For whatever reason, though, WaPo has gone after Allen relentlessly this week, giving prominent placement to editorials disguised as news reporting. Facts not in evidence as passed off as gospel, as in “bizarre Allen insult of a...

I haven't been able to confirm whether the Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, or the Daily News Leader in Staunton have covered this. I wouldn't be too surprised if they ran an amended version of one of the two stories written by the extremely leftist Associated Press.

In reference to the Allen' campaign manager rumors--the attack--if it happened--is a stupid, unprofessional move. Blaming the media is also a cop out. A leader takes responsibility for his actions. When faced with a similar incident in 2001 Senator Byrd made a quick, profuse, unconditional apology. Senator Byrd also did not direct his comments at a 20 year old campaign volunteer and constituent.

Also note that Andrew Young, when faced with a similar set of circumstances recently, resigned from his post. Andrew Young's comments--as inappropriate as they were--were not directed at an individual in a partisan crowd.

Hilary and Biden's racist remarks were inappropriate as well. In Biden's case I have no doubt that it will sink his long-shot presidential candidacy. Hilary's comments were dumb and probably could linger--although Clinton doesn't have anything close to George Allen's history.

Thus, they might be angry at the campaign itself, and went overboard because of that. I've heard they have done that before with politicians, and that Allen really needed to keep the Post off of his back, so to speak - at least keep them from actively targeting him.

Of course, this is all speculation.

Here's a less conspiratorially rhetorical question:

"Perhaps it is front page news when a Senator with a history of racial insensitivity is caught on tape uttering a racial slur in a largely white audience at a non-white camera man?"

I don't think the Post had any love for former Navy Secretary Jim Webb--or at least they didn't before this. The coverage of the race before this consisted largely of page 2 and page 3 Metro stories.

If rumors are true, it probably didn't help that Allen's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, essentially told a beat writer to go "f-word off" in response to this story. Wadhams has a history of whining about "media bias" from influential big town papers--as evidenced by his previous senate campaigns in Colorado and South Dakota. In this race, he has also attacked a respected political analyst--Larry Sabato; told a respected pollster John Zogby that his WSJ/Zogby polls were long-since discredited; and now is whinning about a media bias in the Post--unfortunately EVERY major paper in Virginia has run a story about this. EVERY major paper has run either a house editorial or op-ed condemning George Allen's remarks (including the Roanoke Times, RTD, Virginia Pilot, and Daily Press).

GOP supporters are foolish to dismiss this story or the racists overtones of Allen's remarks. 67 percent of Virginians who have seen this tape claim that Allen's comments are inappropriate.

http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=5293378&nav=menu368_2_9

In this day in age a sitting Senator doesn't call one of his constiuents the equivalent of N-word and question the constituent's citizenship (when the constituent is full naturalized) without getting hammered.

The excellent James Joyner of Outside the Beltway lays it on a little thick in his rundown of George Allen macaca stories, though the only reason I can say that so easily on a Sunday night is that he meticulously...

I'm guessing that right now George Allen is wishing he never appeared as a Confederate officer in the 2003 Civil War movie Gods and Generals in which he sings, "Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights, hurrah!" (Allen's closeups are at 00:12 and 1:18.)

Who knows, Allen may run that in a commercial ....

At least Hillary's transformation from Arkansas denizen to New Yorker flattered the NY voters with the appearance (I use that word advisedly) of upward progress. (NYCers, at least, assume that everyone else would rather live there if they could.)

No one from Virginia is likely to regard an ex-Californian in a similar light.

There are some individuals that invoke utter hatred among certain groups within society: Americans, for example, hate Osama bin Laden, liberals despise George W. Bush, and Red Sox fans have no love for Bucky Dent. You can add many more......

I was not here for it, but from what I have read the Post virtually campaigned for Chuck Robb as well when Allen beat him in the Senate race six years ago.

I think the Post is suffering from Allen Derangement Syndrome - heh.