Claude Allen: A Riddle Inside a Mystery Wrapped In an Prick

We read the big ol’ Post story on disgraced former White House adviser Claude Allen. We know we’re supposed to feel sorry for him. We know we’re supposed to understand that he’s a complex, flawed human being. And boy, leading off with that direct confrontation with racism in North Carolina anecdote, yeah, he’s dealt with a lot, etc. etc. But you know what? Between the “queers” comment, the MLK-as-commie talk, the “hyper-moralizing” administration of HHS, and this story:

It happened in 2000, after a meeting where the NAACP was threatening a boycott if Gov. Gilmore did not end the state’s commemoration of Confederate History Month. Allen, then the state’s secretary of health and human resources, attended with Gilmore to help argue the state’s case for a slower reconsideration of the Confederate issue.

As the meeting drew to a close, Allen approached Khalfani.

“He told me he had something for me,” Khalfani said. “He gave it to me and said, ‘I hope you like it.’ “

It was a poster tube, which Khalfani opened back at his office. It contained a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, in the uniform of his surrender.

Claude Allen really just sounds like an asshole.

The Enigmatic Man [WP]

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