macaca-gate update

The latest in Macaca-gate... So Senator Allen offered his apology to Indian American leaders: Allen's remarks called hurtful. Says Allen, "What bothers me the most of all of this, it's so contrary to who I am. It tears my guts up." Really? Is it really so contrary? How about the Senator's long association with the Confederate flag? Is that so contrary? I don't know, I'm having my doubts about the guts thing.

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org has created an online petition asking the Republican National Committee to withdraw support of Senator Allen: The RNC should withdraw support for Sen. Allen

Also, S.R. Sidarth's grandparents recently wrote a letter to the Washington Post: What Did Mr. Allen Mean?

We would like to thank you for taking the right stand on the gaffe of Sen. George Allen ["George Allen's America," editorial, Aug. 15].

It is quite shocking for a person of Mr. Allen's caliber, who is running for a second Senate term and is a likely candidate for president in 2008, to point a finger at a young lad of 20, bullying our grandson, S.R. Sidarth, and calling him a derogatory and uncalled-for name. Sidarth was only videotaping the event.

In the 1930s Sidarth's great-grandfather accompanied Mohandas Gandhi to London as his secretary at the Round Table Conference on political reform in India. We come from a heritage of nationalists and seekers after truth. Hence these remarks hurt all the more, and we are personally affected by such an attack.

BOB NARASIMHAN

MANI NARASIMHAN

Bethesda

And check out this nice photo of mad Allen protestors: Allen’s gaffe shows politics to be Internet feeding ground. The dude on the right's name is Gogol Ganguli. Isn't that the name of the guy from Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake?