Not much of a diary but I thought I would pass along George Allen's new nickname according to Rollcall.com via Raw Story.
"ROLL CALL also reports that a new nickname for Allen, "Sen. Macacawitz," was overheard at a party recently. Allen came under fire a few weeks ago for calling a man of Indian descent, "macaca," which is sometimes used as a racial slur."
The rest of the Raw Story article goes into Allen's new embrace of his new found Jewish roots.
It looks as though Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) might be embracing his Jewish roots after all.
The Senator long ago had scheduled a field hearing of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee for Monday, Oct. 2, which is Yom Kippur. Last week, Allen moved the date to Oct. 3 to avoid conflict with the high holiday, according to the interest group involved in the hearing.
"He's Jewish and Monday is Yom Kippur," explained Brynn Slate, spokeswoman for the National Association of Women Business Owners, completely matter-of-factly to HOH.
Allen spokesman David Snepp said the date of the hearing, which will explore women-owned businesses vying for federal contracts, was changed at the request of the association. And technically, that's true.
After reading about the blockbuster revelation that Allen is (technically) Jewish, the deputy executive director of the women's business association, Michele Jerome, contacted Allen's staff to see if the Senator would prefer delaying the hearing until after the holiest day of the year for Jews.
"The date was set and then Michele contacted one of his staff because she had read that he had sort of -- I don't know what you would call it -- he had just announced that he's newly Jewish," Slate told us. "So Michele contacted them to ask if they would want to change it because of the holiday."
...
We ran this explanation past Snepp, Allen's spokesman. He replied, "If the group wanted to change the date of this field hearing in honor of the Jewish holiday, that is certainly appropriate, and Sen. Allen is looking forward to the testimony the following day on how to get more women-owned businesses fairly represented in federal contracts."
On one level this nickname is pretty funny as it points out the contradiction of Allen being a racist while knowingly hiding his Jewish background. On the other hand, if you want to look at it as a name meant to disparage his Jewish roots then you have a point as well. I guess it depends on who made the comment and in what context and your level of sensitivity to the issue. However, I feel the juxtaposition of the two words was meant to poke fun at Allen's lies, self-denial and bigotry.