It’s Inevitable

Some first-rate reporting by Garance Franke-Ruta, who finds that in addition to his other issues George Allen sat on the board of a company that sold a risible product, quickly burned through the capital it got through dubious connections, and ended in a hail of lawsuits:

Xybernaut clearly engaged in questionable activities — and did plenty of business with questionable characters — while Allen was a director with a responsibility to protect shareholders’ interests. Xybernaut’s rise, indeed, was driven by some of the financial industry’s seediest bottom-feeders — questionable stock touters, offshore front groups involved in money laundering, and foreign financiers linked to short-selling, securities fraud, and, in 2005, the collapse of a major Wall Street brokerage firm. Driving Xybernaut upward as well were the determined efforts of its officers to promote and sell the company’s stock to unwitting small investors, even as the company’s fundamentals spiraled ever more out of control. It became clear that no market for its products would emerge. And Allen’s affiliation with the company should now raise questions about whether he deserves to retain his other seat — the one on the best board of directors in the world.

A dimwitted, callow, arch-reactionary empty suit whose primary selling point is a superifical affability that partly masks a nasty mean streak and a bottomless well of ressentiment and who was also a terrible businessman? I think we can just declare George Allen the 2008 Republican Party candidate for President and skip the whole primary thing.