Friday, September 22, 2006
The Allen family
Power Line's Paul Mirengoff has a very nice post up remembering Washington Redskins Coach George Allen, father of Virginia Senator George Allen. Mirengoff believes that George Allen was the second most "vivid" coach in NFL history (behind Vince Lombardi on the Mirengoff system), and has the stories to back it up.
Why all this talk of Senator Allen's ancestry? Because he learned less than a month ago that his mother's family was Jewish, a fact that his political opponents have tried to use against him.
6 Comments:
By 
Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Sep 22, 09:27:00 AM:
I was reading the links off of Allen's site expecting to read some bad stuff and they actually ended up making made me question the timing of his outing too. I'm not sure that's what they were going for. It is a little strange in timing isn't it? How old is this guy and just last month he decides to as his mom "'Mom, there's a rumor that Pop-pop and Mom-mom were Jewish and so were you.'" That's a quote form his mother by the way.
By GreenmanTim, at
Fri Sep 22, 09:34:00 AM:
And what of our Jewish ancestry, TH? You may recall from the genealogy Margie provided to the family back in 1975 the name Clarissa Cohen (1792-1867)in there among all those Puritans and Scots. She was the daughter of Eleazer Cohen, who came to Philadelphia from the Netherlands and subsequently converted to Christianity. He was the business partner of Michael Nisbet, the man his daughter married. Michael Nisbet and Clarissa Coehn were our Gr-gr-gr-great grandparents.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Fri Sep 22, 05:39:00 PM:
Someday this country will outgrow it's fixation on race and religion.
By Gary Rosen, at
Fri Sep 22, 08:45:00 PM:
"Someday this country will outgrow it's fixation on race and religion."
What a crock of pious anti-American horsesh*t. As if the rest of the world isn't even more "fixated" than we are.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Sun Sep 24, 09:36:00 AM:
Curious that a renunciation of racism and religious preference is written off as "pious anti-American horsesh*t". Had I only the wisdom to claim the opposite, that the two issues most important to me in a candidate are race and religion, perhaps I'd be free from these charges.
Still, I can't shake the feeling that believing "all created equal" is a very American sentiment. And somewhere I got this idea in my head that people ought to have a right to practice religion however they want. I'm also going to reject the idea that we shouldn't try to do better, simply because the rest of the world is insufficiently enlightened. That kind of thinking would not have spawned the first anything, let alone the first modern democracy. I want the US to achieve a higher standard, while Gary limits us with the accomplishments of others.
Gary, maybe you'd care to share your vision of American, since you don't believe in mine.
By Gary Rosen, at
Mon Sep 25, 01:45:00 AM:
"Gary, maybe you'd care to share your vision of American, since you don't believe in mine. "
You don't know me and you don't have the slightest idea what my "vision of American" is, this is just (more) pious rhetoric.
"...somewhere I got this idea in my head that people ought to have a right to practice religion however they want. "
Hey, that's my vision too! Unsurprisingly, you didn't know what you were talking about in claiming I have a different "vision". It's just that I look around our country and despite little controversies like this one, I think we are pretty damn close to this "vision", and a hell of a lot closer than most other countries.
