"Beyond Macaca": The GOP's George Allen and a Sweet Little "Civic" Group Called the KKK uh... CCC

Funny how many of the great men of the GOP, like Southern governor Haley Barbour and Senator (as well as 2008 presidential hopeful) George Allen have made the acquaintance and embraced the support of the Council of Concerned Citizens, which calls itself a civic organization.

The CCC may not mean anything to you unless you happen to know that the CCC is today's face of another civic organization, the Ku Klux Klan. Ring a bell? A discordant one, perhaps.

Max Blumenthal at The Nation tells you why Senator George Allen, who thoroughly enjoyed calling a man of a different hue than Allen's pals at the CCC "macaca" (which can mean shit or monkey or something even worse) probably doesn't want some photos with old "friends" to see much light of day.

Considering both Presidents Bush owe their wealthy lineage to a man who made a fortune off the Nazis, Allen would seem like a great next-in-line for the White (and oh, so very white) House. Here's a bit of the very fragrant story:

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

Descended from the White Citizens' Councils that battled integration in the Jim Crow South, the CCC is designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In its "Statement of Principles," the CCC declares, "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races."

The CCC has hosted several conservative Republican legislators at its conferences, including former Representative Bob Barr of Georgia and Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi. But mostly it has been a source of embarrassment to Republicans hoping to move their party beyond its race-baiting image. Former Reagan speechwriter and conservative pundit Peggy Noonan pithily declared that anyone involved with the CCC "does not deserve to be in a leadership position in America."