George Allen's Race Problem

Many of George Allen's high school classmates are surprised that he's considering running for president because of the racist tendencies he displayed as a teenager.
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Political Wire received an advance copy of a New Republic profile of Sen. George Allen (R-VA) in which author Ryan Lizza finds many of Allen's high school classmates surprised that he's considering running for president because of the racist tendencies he displayed as a teenager. They say he "plastered the school with confederate flags" and drove a red Mustang with a confederate flag on the front. Then Lizza got a copy of Allen's high school yearbook:

I stared closely at Allen's smirk in his photo, weighing whether his old classmates were just out to destroy him. And then I noticed something on his collar. It's hard to make out, but then it becomes obvious. Seventeen-year-old George Allen is wearing a Confederate flag pin.

When confronted with this evidence, Allen sent an email through an aide with this explanation: "When I was in high school in California, I generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude."

Political Wire will have more on this story later.

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