Sen. George Allen denies making racial slur

According to many media reports on the despicable event
surrounding Sen. George Allen of Virginia, describing
a campaign worker of his opponent as a 'Macaca', he
now says that his remark was not meant to be a racial slur.
This is a terrible thing to happen to a person who is an
American albeit of Indian descent. Among the many
things noted in the article, the following are relevant:

1. "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is," said Allen, who at times pointed directly at the camera.
2. Macaca is a class of monkey, including the rhesus monkey.
3. "He was doing that because he could, because he could get away with it," Sidarth said. "I think he was just trying to, trying to point out the fact that I was a person of color, in a crowd that was not otherwise."

Kind of amazing that such a thing could have happened.

I am also reminded of the writings of Rahul Mahajan, where
he had once written that when he was campaigning against the Iraq war
before it started, many would question his patriotism, while colleagues with
'standard' American names would never get mail of that sort.