Calls for Allen to release his arrest records.

1. In your zeal to see the candidate you support elected, are you certain you’re not crossing some lines that you will regret having tread on later?

   I know, I know, Allen’s ploy with Webb’s old novels was low, base, unseemly, and certainly unsenatorial (if that word has any meaning left.) But calling for Allen’s divorce court records to be unsealed and his arrest records released is just as bad in my opinion.

2. If the matter was something mundane or uninteresting, then why not release them?

   Because of the right to privacy. For example, just because my browser history contains nothing particularly shameful, I would still be upset if it were released.

3. Erm, that was poorly worded. But you get the drift. I have to agree with Judge Smails here.

4. Because of the right to privacy. For example, just because my browser history contains nothing particularly shameful, I would still be upset if it were released.

   But you’re not running for U.S. Senate. :) People seeking the highest offices in the land are obliged to disclose a great deal of private information that is not necessary from private citizens. Why call on Sen. Kerry to release his medical records from Vietnam? Why require U.S. Senators to disclose their stock ownership? Why must all candidates for office report the names of everybody from whom they’ve receive money? Such things help us to take the measure of the man, understand their biases and backings.

   (Sidenote: Rich Collins was arrested during his campaign for House of Delegates. That was public, as it should have been. My wife, his campaign manager, never entertained the notion that it should be otherwise.)

   If Sen. Allen declared that he would be happy to release his divorce records, but his wife opposes doing so, I would take those statements at face value and cease my interest in the topic.

   I’m not sure I’d do the same in the matter of his (apparently) multiple arrests in the 70s, given that his position as the son of a figure of great fame and influence may well have prevented him from being convicted or even being charged in matters where mere mortals like you and I would not have fared so well. If he were not in that sort of a position at the time, I suspect I’d be considerably more sympathetic.

5. If Sen. Allen declared that he would be happy to release his divorce records, but his wife opposes doing so, I would take those statements at face value and cease my interest in the topic.

   Someone should ask his ex-wife if she’d mind releasing her copies of their divorce records. If he won’t be she will… no reason why they shouldn’t be public.

6. be she will…

   [edit- should read: If he won’t maybe she will…]

7. But you’re not running for U.S. Senate.

   Fair enough. I suppose that in this situation, he has given up some of his right to privacy by running for public office. I was reacting mostly to the dangerously sweeping statement, “if there’s nothing bad in there, why are you keeping it secret?” That is all too often used as a justification for unreasonable search of private citizens’ lives.

8. Looks like the argument of Allen’s privacy is moot, anyway:

   Look, George Allen’s record is an open book.

   — Allen press release

9. It’s that “open book” statement that’s really annoyed me. He and his surrogates have repeatedly made that statement, from which I can only conclude that there is nothing in his past that he feels is secret.

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