It's plainly evident that when you hit bottom, you should stop digging. No one ever told that to Dick Wadhams. In this morning's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wadhams made a wild and outrageous charge of anti-Semitism against the Webb campaign.

In an article titled, "Allen: Webb camp anti-Semitic," George Allen's campaign manager wildly and irrationally tagged the Webb campaign and the pro-Webb corner of the blogosphere as Jew-haters. "Anti-Semitic themes run through the Webb campaign. I distinctly make that assertion and that charge," said Wadhams.

Perhaps Dick should have made sure not to cite Raising Kaine, run by Jewish Virginian Lowell Feld. More after the jump.

In what is clearly an attempt to rescue a foundering campaign once thought to be on easy street, Wadhams and Allen are seeking to use the Jewish community as a bludgeon to deflect their own hatemongering and project their intolerance onto Webb. They even trotted two of the grand total of three Jewish Republicans in Congress--Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor and Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman--to help out in the effort.

The Allen campaign specifically noted stories on Raising Kaine as some sort of evidence that the Webb campaign is rife with anti-Semitism:

Wadhams referred to posts on Democratic blog sites that address Allen's Jewish ancestry, Among the sites mentioned by Wadhams: raisingkaine.com, operated by Webb campaign blogger Lowell Fulk (sic). Fulk (sic) is Jewish. "To call me in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic is just a little ridiculous," said Fulk (sic), who put up a post after the Fairfax County debate that included video of Allen's testy response. "Wadhams is just trying to turn George Allen into some sort of victim." On several blogs, some friendly to Webb, posts chided Allen for his fierce reply to the question by a Washington television station. Others poked fun at the senator or raised questions about his forthrightness. Some Republican blogs carried posts defending Allen and critical of those who questioned his lineage. Fulk (sic) said by attacking Democratic blogs, the Allen campaign is "trying to change the subject. . . . They're shooting the messenger."



Note that the pro-Allen rag, Times-Dispatch, gets Feld's last name wrong. Lowell Fulk was a Democratic candidate for House of Delegates last year from Rockingham County.

Like Lowell Feld, I am a Jewish Virginian. I know what anti-Semitism is, and calling George Felix Allen out for his deeply aghast reaction to being asked if he was Jewish is not anti-Semitism. In an era where synagogues are advised to undertake heavy security measures on High Holidays, where victims like Ilan Halimi are kidnapped, tortured, and murdered for being Jewish, anti-Semitism is a serious concern. That George Felix Allen would simply spit on those victims to make a cheap point and use our religious community as a weapon only further underscores what more and more Virginians realize every day: he is unfit for public office.