If you search "macaca" in Google images, you get 21 pages of results - and not one of them is a photo of a young man with a Mohawk haircut. "Macaca" is what European racists call North Africans: monkeys.

But when George Allen was caught on tape calling S.R. Sidarth a "macaca" - twice - he lied to the Washington Post.

Asked what macaca means, Allen said: "I don't know what it means." He said the word sounds similar to "mohawk," a term that his campaign staff had nicknamed Sidarth because of his haircut.

George Allen knows exactly what macaca means, because his mother is French Tunisian. If she didn't use it as a racist slur herself, one of her relatives or friends most certainly did. No doubt George is very well versed in French Tunisian curse words.

George Allen has a long and ugly racist past. Why is the media letting him get away with lying about the meaning of macaca - especially after their vicious attacks on Ned Lamont after Jane Hamsher posted a Lieberman blackface image?

Update 1: Here's Josh Marshall:

What did Allen mean? We now know that not only is 'macaque' a French language slur used to describe North Africans but Allen has a dizzyingly direct way of being familiar with the word. His mother is French Tunisian. Given that it would be amongst the French colonial population in North Africa that the word would have the greatest currency (even if only by familiarity rather than use), it seems close to impossible to believe that Allen didn't become familiar with the word growing up.

Exactly right. So why does Marshall go out of his way to invent excuses for Allen's racist slurs?

No, I don't think Allen would have done it intentionally, at least not in the narrow sense. He may be a closet racist (and there's actually a pretty good case to be made (sub.req.) that he is, quite independent of this incident) but I don't think he's intentionally self-destructive.

Why does Marshall assume Allen's racist outburst would be "self-destructive"? The modern Republican Party was built on Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" of appealing to white racists. That strategy has gotten the Republican "base" to the polls year after year after year - and never once produced an anti-racist backlash. So why would Allen have any reason to believe a racist outburst would cause him any harm at all?

Marshall posted this note from one of his readers:

As that blogger you linked yesterday demonstrated, "macaca" and its derivatives are well-known among white supremacists and neo-nazis. What about the thought that Allen used the epithet, knowing it would be reported, as a subliminal way of telling these people (and they're out there in greater numbers in the south, unfortunately) that "I'm one of you"???

Let's review that this guy used to have the Stars and Bars on his car in southern California 40 years ago, and was noted in his high school yearbook as being "pro-Confederate" with the things he wore. You weren't around then, but I was, and I can tell you that any white person doing that was a racist and a white supremacist, identifying with the "southern resistance" to the civil rights movement.

This guy is not just dangerous like Bush is, he's dangerous as "the next progression" of the Republican far right.

Update 2: Jeffrey Feldman researched the meaning of "macaca"

the question is not if 'macaca' is a racist term, but which of the three definitions of the word 'macaca' did George Allen intend when he used it?

Here are the three choices:
1. 'Macaca' - French : racist slang; similar to English 'nigger,' used to describe Arabs.
2. 'Macaca' - English : racist slang; similar to 'nigger' used to describe Arabs.
3. 'Macaca' - English : racist slang; used by American white supremacists in 'insider' talk about African-Americans.

Which one is it? 

Feldman concludes:

George Allen's used 'macaca' at his campaign stop (1) consciously, (2) specifically in order to signal to people who knew what it meant, and (3)  with the goal of showing that he was not intimidated by the staffer from his opponent's campaign attending his campaign events.

The entire statement was designed to humiliate the person in question by drawing attention to them and insulting them mwith a coded racial slur--all with the intention of showing confidence in response to intimidation from his opponent.

It is likely that George Allen did not believe many people would understand what was being said, except for 'insiders' already familiar with the word 'macaca.'

and he adds:

In a few words:  George Allen used a white power word in his stump speach.  And he did it on purpose...

journalists, voters and elected officialsin Virginia have ample reason to ask George Allen an extended series of questions about this incident. 

It is fair to say that if a sitting U.S. Senator is identified as using a word identified as part of a broader white power vocabulary--that is cause for serious alarm.

Update 3: Now Allen says he simply made "macaca" up out of thin air:

I also made up a nickname for the cameraman [Sidarth], which was in no way intended to be racially derogatory. Any insinuations to the contrary are completely false.

Oh really? Why should we believe a man with a long history of racism?

Update 4: CNN's Andrea Koppel covered the story and interviewed Sidharth, who said he introduced himself by name to Allen earlier in the week. He also said Allen was "legendary" for remembering the names of people he met.

Update 5: Another day, another explanation:

Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday's videotaped encounter.

According to two Republicans who heard the word used, "macaca" was a mash-up of "Mohawk," referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and "caca," Spanish slang for excrement, or "shit."

Said one Republican close to the campaign: "In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance." Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend's event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen's version of the event.

Webb's communications director Kristian Denny Todd nails it:

 "I don't know what's worse; calling this innocent 20-year-old a "shit head" or a racist slur that was debatable that it wasn't," she said. "This is a kid that had done George Allen no harm. The term was used to demean him. That's the bottom line."