Robert George reminds us all of the strange similarities between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.

Have there ever been two U.S. political figures so similar at heart, yet so divided by party?

The New Republic cleverly subtitles this Ryan Lizza story about Sen. George Allen’s race problem (featuring his wearing a Confederate-flag pin in a high school yearbook photo) "Pin Prick."

Having read the article, though, I’d have to say Allen’s problem seems to have less to do with wearing the pin than generally being a prick.

Let’s just take a few of the more disturbing passages:

As the scrum breaks up, Allen turns away
and spits a long brown streak of saliva into the dirt, just missing one
of his constituents, a carefully put-together, blonde, ponytailed woman
approaching the senator for an autograph. She stops in her tracks and
stares with disgust at the bubbly tobacco juice that almost landed on
her feet. Without missing a beat, Allen’s communications director, John
Reid, reassures her: "That’s just authenticity!"

Yes, being a pig is very "authentic." Then there’s this:

George Allen is the oldest
child of legendary football coach George Herbert Allen, and, when his
father was on the road, young George often acted as a surrogate dad to
his siblings. According to his sister Jennifer, he was particularly
strict about bedtimes. One night, his brother Bruce stayed up past his
bedtime. George threw him through a sliding glass door. For the same
offense, on a different occasion, George tackled his brother Gregory
and broke his collarbone. When Jennifer broke her bedtime curfew,
George dragged her upstairs by her hair.

George tormented Jennifer enough that, when she grew up, she wrote a
memoir of what it was like living in the Allen family. In one sense,
the book, Fifth Quarter, from which these details are culled,
is unprecedented. No modern presidential candidate has ever had such a
harsh and personal account of his life delivered to the public by a
close family member. The book paints Allen as a cartoonishly sadistic
older brother who holds Jennifer by her feet over Niagara Falls on a
family trip (instilling in her a lifelong fear of heights) and slams a
pool cue into her new boyfriend’s head. "George hoped someday to become
a dentist," she writes. "George said he saw dentistry as a perfect
profession–getting paid to make people suffer."

Again, charming. If half of this is true, George Allen is a dangerous psychopath.

Then, of course, there’s Allen’s lifelong affection for the Confederacy, which makes little sense for a guy neither born nor raised in the South:

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.

In the piece, Allen seems to dispute some of the details of all of this. But not with much conviction or certainty. Mainly he claims he doesn’t remember it all that well. There’s no denying the flag pin in the photograph.

This should put a pretty serious dent in Allen’s presidential ambitions. He looks more and more like every unfair stereotype of George W. Bush made flesh.

John Podhoretz has this to say about former Bush administration bigwig / petty thief Claude Allen on The Corner:

CLAUDE ALLEN [John Podhoretz]
I wrote a book about the Bush White House. I know the names of many people who worked in the Bush White House. I’ve read every story there is to read about the Bush White House. I’ve been a political journalist for almost a quarter century, worked in a Republican administration, and gone to many right-wing parties. So let me say this about accused thief and former White House policy bigshot Claude Allen:

WHO?

I’ll take John’s word that he’s never heard of Allen. I hadn’t until recently, either (though I’m only a little more than a quarter-century old). But this guy was a big deal to social conservatives.

When I talked to Paul Weyrich recently for my book (it was sometime in mid-February), he was very distressed about Allen’s having left. He called him a very effective advocate for the religious right — and someone they would miss greatly.

Hey, weird things happen. I don’t consider the Claude Allen thing even a blip on the radar as far as the GOP’s problems. But he was important to certain segments of the party.

Why haven’t papers been running the Danish cartoons?

Pretty simple really: "This was expressed to
us directly: ‘I’m not putting lives in danger. We’re not getting things
blown up.’"

That’s Harry Siegel’s report of why his former paper’s owners wouldn’t print the cartoons.

He’s a former colleague, and I don’t doubt for a second he’s telling the truth. Fearful editors who refuse to print these cartoons, on the other hand, are lying.

On the train down to D.C. to blog CPAC for a second year in a row.

Plan to pass along lots of pictures of conservatives in their little conservative monkey suits.

Should be an interesting three days after all the drama of Year 1 of W2.

Also a nice break from spending all day every day locked up in my apartment crashing on book deadlines.

Stay tuned…

Here are all 12 Danish cartoons.

Why is William Shatner giving the Democratic response?

This is just a sampling of the creepiness that is Worth Street in downtown Palm Beach.

The town, full of high-end stores, was deserted — except for creepy things like this.

Wonders…

Grand Central at holiday time (take that, Fox News).

God, and the little baby Jesus, bless New York.

Now I’m getting pissed.

This is about where I decided I was tired and would just take the subway.

..Moondance diner, how your half-assed Spider Man-themed menus entice me!

Onward!

…do you think is the difference between a crazy fantasy video and a sane one?

..still closed.