Stars and Bars: In an absolute must-read, the New Republic's Ryan Lizza reports in a 5,000-word profile that Sen. George Allen's (R-VA) interest in the Confederate Flag goes back much further than previously thought.
"In high school, Allen's 'Hee Haw' persona made him a polarizing figure. 'He rode a little red Mustang around with a Confederate flag plate on the front,' says Patrick Campbell, an old classmate, who now works for the Public Works Department in Manhattan Beach, California. 'I mean, it was absurd-looking in our neighborhood.' Hurt Germany, who now lives in Paso Robles, California, explodes with anger at the mention of Allen's name. 'The guy is horrible,' she complains. 'He drove around with a Confederate flag on his Mustang. I can't believe he's going to run for president.' Another classmate, who asks that I not use her name, also remembers Allen's obsession with Dixie: 'My impression is that he was a rebel. He plastered the school with Confederate flags.
"Politically, Allen's years in Palos Verdes were dominated by the lingering racial tensions from the riots in nearby Watts in 1965 - when that neighborhood was practically burned to the ground - and the nationwide riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which left other parts of Southern California in flames. It is with that context in mind that four former classmates and one former administrator at Allen's high school described to me an event for which Allen is most remembered - and the first glimpse that the château-raised Californian might grow up to become a defender of the South's heritage."
"It was the night before a major basketball game with Morningside High.The mostly black inner-city school adjacent to Watts was coming to the almost entirely white Palos Verdes High to play. When students arrived at school on game day, they found graffiti spray-painted on the school library and other places. All five people who described the incident say the graffiti was racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students. But it was actually put there by Allen and some of his friends. 'It was something like die whitey,' says Campbell. The school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would 'seriously consider' voting for Allen for president, says the graffiti said, 'burn, baby, burn,' a reference to the race riots." While Noting the efforts Sen. Allen has made to try to "make amends for his old pro-Dixie stances" (like sponsoring an anti-lynching resolution in the Senate and traveling to Birmingham, AL on a "civil rights pilgrimage,") Lizza reports that Allen is wearing a Confederate flag pin in his Palos Verdes, California high school yearbooka fact which Lizza later gets Allen's staff to confirm.
This Lizza profile will eventually become a part of a book of profiles on '08ers that TNR writers are hoping to get published in mid- to late-2007. The piece will be on the web today.