From the Scripps Howard News Service, quoting from a Sunday Washington Post story:
In this past Sunday's Washington Post, looking back on an experience he said he would not wish on anyone, Sidarth wrote: "Everywhere I went, though I was identifiably working on behalf of Allen's opponent, people treated me with dignity, respect and kindness. I cannot recall one event where food was served and I was not invited to join in the meal."
The following day, he went on, "even after Allen's comments had highlighted my outsider status, I was not allowed to depart without eating ..." And, he said, Allen's staff gave him accurate directions to the senator's next campaign event.
All else aside, this speaks highly of Allen and Sidarth's fellow Virginians. There was more than just one winner in that campaign.
What do you know. Allen's campaign wasn't spiteful, or hateful. Allen's supporters weren't racist hicks who saw only a "strange" person not like them. They didn't treat him mean, and contrary to the idea that Allen saw Sidarth as some opponent to be vilified, he and his campaign saw him as a person to be treated with dignity and respect.
Do you think a front-page Washington Post article in the week after the macaca incident which explained to Virginians how Allen and the campaign REALLY treated Sidarth would have been worth 10,000 votes? I think so. And I think they thought so to. Which is why you didn't read this story until AFTER the election was over.
It's one thing to agressively pursue and overreport stupid stories again and again, but to hide the truth from the voters until after the election in order to help your preferred candidate is what a CAMPAIGN does, not what a real news service does.
Which tells you what the Washington Post was for the Webb campaign this year.
5 comments:
Has Sidarth accepted a position in the Webb office yet? Seems like he should be able to write his own ticket.
So, does traditional Virginia hospitality negate Allen's racist bullying of Siddarth at the Breaks event? Saying Virginians are good and welcoming people is like saying the sun will set tonight. That doesn't change Allen's actions towards Siddarth.
It's telling how little respect for Virginia voters you have in that you don't think they had any voice in the vote; you say it's all the work of "the media".
Jaxebad
Charles: I always had the impression that the negatives of the macaca incident didn't have anything to do with how Siddarth was treated cay-to-day by the people around Allen. I always thought the problem was Allen himself and his remarks to Siddarth during the event at The Breaks. Given that it was videotaped by Siddarth himself, it's a little hard to pin it on the Post. Where the Post went overboard, I think, was the hearsay reports of N word usage from three decades ago. That's pretty flimsy stuff and does bespeak a frenzy to keep the crypto-racist pot boiling.
In any event, Siddarth's first-person account in the Post was interesting and well-written. It shows that Virginians in both parties were capable of kindness and courtesy and that the Senator's conduct that day was atypical of the kind of reaction a Northern Virginian gets around the Commonwealth.
Jaxebad, on the contrary, we trust the people to make good decisions, based on facts.
But for most people , the "facts" they have are what the media decides to tell them.
So, or example, anybody who reads the Post or listens to the radio or watches the TV news knew all about Shelton and his charges of the n-word from college.
But not one in a thousand voters ever heard the charge about Webb having an extramarital affair with a student while he was a teacher at the Naval academy, and event that took place at the same time as Allen's alleged use of the n-word.
NScout, The Post justified continuing coverage of the Macaca incident with descriptions of how the Allen team treated Sidarth like some outsider who didn't belong, some foreigner who didn't belong, and Allen's action against him a hateful intolerance born of frustration with having to put up with him.
But it turns out he wasn't a thorn in their side that they ostracised, he was simply an opposition campaign worker who was treated with dignity and respect.
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