Somebody's "Swiftboating" here as well...

One of the people appears to be Larry Sabato, infamous UVA PoliSci professor. In addition to his past (inaccurate) analysis that always slanted way left and his amazing ability to show up in the MSM and say what they want to hear, this only serves to kill any belief that Sabato is unbiased. Turns out, past stories about him being a media whore now seem to be verified by this deal.

a white politician in america acting like a good ole racist dog! say it ain't so george. say it ain't so baby!
I will even have one negroe at my senate confirmation if am re.elected, the senator was over.heard lamenting over a bowl of grits

Has anyone else noticed that every single Webb supporter who has posted comments here is just as nasty a little cretin as the candidate himself?

Kinda makes ya wonder, "Who's their daddy?" doesn't it?

Webb supporters are NAZIS.

Oops! I just said the "N" word!

Perhaps the N word was brought out by the Dems and the MSM because their internal polls still show Allen ahead.

Stay turned for more nasties to be aimed at Allen.

BTW my VA friends, 12 in all, plan to vote for Allen mainly because they just cannot go Webb.

What does it matter? It happened in 1970's. Even if he did, it was a young and foolish comment. Thirty years down the line, I think he has probably changed a litte. Besides, haven't we all said something we regret? I know I have.

Larry Sabato is a highly respected political scientist. He wouldn't risk his reputation by lying on national TV about a United States senator making a racist comment. This isn't Terry McAuliffe we're talking about. Sabato is a Charlie Cook, Chuck Todd type. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to go along with the spin on this one.

SPIN?

Look at this between Chris Matthews and Sabato:

MATTHEWS: How do you know about the "N" word? How do you know, Larry, about the "N" word?

SABATO: Because there is other evidence that I'm not going to go into on your show, Chris, sorry.

MATTHEWS: But you can swear to this?

SABATO: I absolutely believe that he used the "N" word. That is absolute correct and I do believe that. Also I must tell you, Ken Sheldon is a very able, dependable fellow, highly regarded.

MATTHEWS: But you never heard him use it, did you?

SABATO: Chris, I'm not going to go into any more details.

MATTHEWS: No, that's a yes or no. I mean, if you have, you have, if you haven't, you haven't.

SABATO: Yes. Well, and there are the two choices and you just presented them and we've had a nice talk.

If you believe he is worthy of respect after THAT, you're just an idiot. He is making a very serious accusation against a federal candidate, inserting himself into the race, and then refuse to even say if personally heard it or not?

Good post Jim.

He says there are other "details" he can't go and couldn't swear that he had heard him say it.

How convienent.

Here's the thing. I can empathize with where Sabato is coming from. I went to one of these prestigious schools with lots of wannabe politicians and what-not. A lot of them were very immature at the time because, hey, they were 21, and people do and say stupid things at that age. A couple of my friends who wanted to go into politics enjoyed sitting around and using every derogatory term known to man.

So if ten or twenty years down the road I'm a bigwig pundit (God willing) and some cable news hotshot corners me on the air on whether I ever heard this politician that I happened to know in college use a derogatory term, I would probably respond the way Sabato did. My professional integrity would prevent me from lying, but at the same time, I'm not going to sit there on national TV and call my old college friend a bigot. What I saw in Sabato was a guy who got caught in the crossfire and didn't like it. You could tell that he was getting irate from the questioning. I can't blame Sabato for what he said, even though he probably should have just refused to comment on the situation entirely if his loyalties were conflicted. But my singular point was that I think that conflating him with every run of the mill Democrat hack is unfair.

(Incidentally, Sabato did come out today and say that he'd never heard Allen make the comment, but that he'd been approached by mutual college friends with the information.)

And Jim, I apologize for accusing you of "spin." I should've chosen my words more carefully. It's just that I've been seeing a lot of conservatives respond to the Allen mess by attacking Sabato's credibility today and it's been bothering me. Demanding that Sabato release his source is the more appropriate course of action in my view. I don't think the evidence we have allows us to fairly morph Sabato into Terry McAullife just yet.

Sabato blew it.

He has set himself up as an objective analyst. He spent years on local TV before the national folks started booking him. He has promoted himself as an objective analyst, and is based at a public, taxpayer-funded university.

Once Sabato decided to become part of the story, his credibility was permanently shot. There is no reason to pay him the slightest attention any more - not that his prognostications have been very accurate on balance anyway; he did call the 1994 GOP win early, but beyond that he hasn't distinguished himself.

There might be some excuse if he personally heard Allen use some slur the Senator denies using, but he didn't. And he won't even mention who told him. It's the worst possible thing he could do, because there is no way for Allen to defend himself against nameless secondhand accusations.

If I were to say, "Dave is a child molester. I know this, because anonymous sources told me and I know it to be true," it would be an equal outrage. But at least you could sue me, an option not easily availed by public figures like Allen.

In the end, Larry Sabato couldn't resist becoming a part of the story and trying to affect the race. He is hopelessly compromised as a political observer now, unless he is willing to appear as a "Democratic consultant." His UVA "Center" needs to be shut down immediately. Taxpayers shouldn't be funding partisan hacks like Sabato.