Glagh!

It's not so much that every time George Allen opens his mouth, he puts his foot in... it's more like his loafers never leave his big yapper.

Much like the "macaca" episode, when asked about his Jewish ancestry by a reporter, Allen can't seem to settle on one explanation. His first response was to throw a tantrum. The next step? blame it on mom.

RICHMOND, Va. - Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record)'s mother hid her Jewish upbringing from her children until late last month to spare them the fear suffered by her father, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

"What they put my father through. I always was fearful," the Post quoted Henriette "Etty" Allen of Palos Verdes, Calif., as saying in a telephone interview. "I didn't want my children to have to go through that fear all the time."

She said her son, a Republican seeking a second term in a close race, asked her about it over dinner at her home in late August when he was in Los Angeles for a fundraiser.

"When I told Georgie, I said, 'Now you don't love me anymore.' He said, 'Mom, I respect you more than ever,'" she told the newspaper.

Heartwarming. Oh, brother.

On Tuesday, Allen acknowledged his Jewish ancestry publicly for the first time in a statement his campaign issued.

Etty Allen said she swore the senator to secrecy, asking him not to tell his wife, his two brothers or his sister. "The fact this is such an issue justifies my actions, and my behavior," she told the newspaper.

This is just so weird. Is it just me, or is a big issue being made of something that, well, really shouldn't be an issue? Is a statement like this really necessary? Why all the shame? I also find it interesting that, when she first tells little Georgie about his ancestry, her first reaction is "you don't love me anymore." Because of the lies? Or because of the ancestry?

Oh, and about that monkey-boy thing...

She also dismissed suggestions that she had ever used the word "macaca" in front of her children. The word, considered a racial slur in some cultures, became an issue when the senator applied it to a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent during a rally before a mostly white crowd Aug. 11.

The videotaped remarks were posted on the Internet, and subsequent international news coverage helped Webb pull almost even with Allen, erasing what had been a commanding Allen lead.

"I swear to you, I have never used that word," she told the newspaper. "I must have used a lot of bad words, but not that word."

She said she had never heard the word and that after the story broke, she tried to find it in her dictionary but there was no listing for it.

Good grief. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

And, true to form, Allen ran right out and said something completely stupid.

"Some may find it odd that I have not probed deeply into the details of my family history, but it's a fact," Allen said in his statement.

Speaking with The Times-Dispatch, Allen said the disclosure is "just an interesting nuance to my background." He added, "I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops."

I'll just leave you all now to shake your heads in amazement.

(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to TPM and August, who wants to know if George Allen is, in fact, the stupidest person alive.)

(I want you to cross-post me...)