I was in college the first time I encountered Virginia Gentleman and it knocked me on my butt.  My latest encounter with a different form of Virginia "gentleman" was yesterday when I saw the video below of Virginia Senator George Allen on his campaign tour.  It also knocked me on my butt because it introduced me to the term "macaca", which apparently is a racial epithet and it showed once again how quickly a political campaign can turn.

Allen called the cameraman, an American college student of Indian descent who was filming Allen on behalf of Allen’s opponent Jim Webb, "macaca" and at one point said "welcome to America and welcome to the real world."  Since this was a predominantly white, rural Virginia crowd a lot of people think Allen was making a racial remark and Webb’s campaign is playing it to the hilt.

Now this thing has gone national, and not in the positive way. There’s a great piece on the Daily Show about it and Allen’s comment was even the subject of a question at a White House press briefing. It has also provided a reason for people to bring up Senator Allen’s confederate flag wielding days, none of which is good for a political campaign in 2006.  Ouch.

As you can tell from this exchange at Ed Cone’s blog no one’s really sure if Allen even meant anything specific by using the term "macaca", but as always the Daily Show had it right when they said (I’m paraphrasing), "I don’t know what macaca means but it sure as sh– sounds racist and in Virginia that may or may not be a bad thing."  I love that show.