George Allen admits what we all already knew

In an article which will appear in tomorrow's Richmond Times Dispatch, George Allen takes blame for his loss to Jim Webb. No doubt Conservatives will tout how great he is for "accepting defeat," while the rest of us sane folk realized long ago that Allen had no one to blame but himself.

His re-election campaign didn't focus enough on issues and his record, unlike his bids for governor in 1993 and for the Senate in 2000, the Virginia Republican said yesterday.

Well, yeah? Instead of actually focusing on ANYTHING that remotely mattered to ANYONE, the campaign focused on attacking fictional books Jim Webb wrote, and attacking "trackers" hired by the Webb campaign. They even sponsored a news conference where women were given a platform to ATTACK JIM WEBB and something he wrote 20 years ago.

"I think we would have done better if it was focused on those things that really do matter to people in Virginia," he added. "I take responsibility for the fact that we came up short."

I think however, myself and other Dems can appreciate this next part of the article the most:

He was interviewed in his Senate office, where the handsome wooden bookshelves stood empty. Packing cartons were stacked in the hallway. Walls in an Allen reception area, formerly adorned with photos of a political rising star, were bare and cold.

Probably carrying that inane football in one hand, like LINUS with a blanket, Allen said:

"I'm not going to brood over every single one of those plays in the first quarter, or in the second quarter. Suffice it to say that in the event that this [campaign] was more focused, and I had done a better job, and our team had done a better job -- I'm the quarterback or coach, it's my name on the ballot -- if the A-team, and me in particular, had done better, the team would have done better."

So George Allen actually took the time (again) to acknowledge that his own stupidity, attacks on fictional novels, and volunteers and his bigoted remarks lost the election. Now let's await Conservatives who will no doubt, as I said, tout this as some great moral thing Allen has done.