Character Assassination

George Allen's blog is hitting back – again – against what looks increasingly like a very coordinated campaign of character assassination. They have a very compelling roundup of some pretty darn odd coincidences around all this.

Let’s note some of the odd coincidences about the recent character assassination:

• The people making these allegations are (surprise!) Democrats and activist opponents of George Allen.
• George Allen has held prominent public office in Virginia for more than a decade, yet a few Democrats have chosen to make unfalsifiable claims at the same time, just prior to an election.
• …and they ‘independently’ sought out Larry Sabato to tell him the story? Why?
• Christopher Taylor says he heard Allen say “only the n*****s around here eat [turtles]”, yet Allen’s ex-wife has denied “with absolute certainty” Taylor’s claim, and points out that the “person who ate the turtles was our neighbor.”
• Each news story has produced one person to claim that Allen said the ‘n-word’, against many — even dozens — of people who directly contradict those claims. The unsubstantiated claims get (surprise!) headline treatment, while the dozens of contradictions are buried or ignored.
• Christopher Taylor claimed he’d merely been emailing a colleague, Fred Damon, at UVA about the alleged racism. By amazing coincidence, Fred Damon’s wife is a Democratic activist and (surprise!) a Webb supporter.
• The Damons have even given money to the Webb campaign and to the Democratic National Committee, and Nancy has called her husband “a political animal.” What a remarkable coincidence that he just happened to get an email about their candidates opponent!
• In yet another shocking coincidence, Damon is known by Webb campaign staff, one of whom listed her in “a who’s who of C’ville Dems supporting Webb“.
• Again, Sabato says of the people he’s talked to: “I never solicited them. They came to me during the past few months.” Why did they all come to him? One possibility: they were sent.
• Why have two “Louisa County sheriff’s deputies who were on the force in the early ’70s … recall no complaints about severed animal heads”, the police officer in charge of investigations say “that’s a myth”, and a “search of Louisa County’s weekly newspaper [between] the years 1972 through 1974 yield no” similar account?
• By sheer coincidence, just months before Ken Shelton allegedly ‘remembered’ a hunting trip with Allen in which a deer head was put in a mailbox, an identical incident happened in North Carolina, where (surprise!) Shelton lives.
• No doubt by pure coincidence, a blogger known by Webb campaign staff claims to be aware of news stories that haven’t come out yet.
• The New York Times runs an emailed allegation from “an active Democrat” despite having no confirmation at all from the other person she claims was a witness. No doubt they just thought it was a very well-written email…and who can doubt the word of a Democratic activist during an election? Any resemblance to bad journalism or an anti-Allen agenda is pure coincidence.

That’s a lot of coincidences. Here’s one more.

Go read the rest, including the extremely odd way the original accuser (and party activist) Dr. Ken Shelton turned down Fox News for an interview. One of the other accusers is the same guy who runs the thoroughly discredited Capitol Hill Blue website.

I said it yesterday: The vicious season.