In the Washington Post yesterday, Jim Webb’s campaign spokeswoman, Kristian Denny Todd, responded to an allegation by a former colleague of Webb’s that Webb had once used the N-word. According to that former colleague, a man named Dan Cragg, Webb once told Cragg in an interview that he, Webb, used the N-word to harass residents of Watts when Webb was attending the University of Southern California. There was a serious problem with Cragg’s story — Cragg recorded the interview, he says, but the Watts story is not on the tape. In any event, Todd told the Post that Webb “did not want to make any blanket statements that he has never, ever uttered the word.” She also added that “Jim has not used the word directed at another person. He’s never used it himself as a racial slur.”

I wondered what “not used the word directed at another person” meant. Did it mean not calling someone the N-word to his or her face? I don’t think Allen is accused of doing that. So I spoke to Todd this morning, and she expanded a little on her remarks. Webb has used the word “in his writings and his journalistic endeavors,” she said. “But the point is that he understands the word and what it is used for, and he doesn’t condone it, and he doesn’t use it.” She repeated her statement that Webb “has never used it directed at another person.” And then she added that Webb has never used the N-word “outside of his writings and journalistic endeavors.” That seems to be a pretty definitive statement.

Finally, I asked her about this portion of the Post report:

Todd condemned the [Watts] allegations as politically motivated by the Allen campaign.
“They are pathetic individuals. They are beneath it. They are slime,” she said. “Here we are trying to talk about the issues. They are completely and totally desperate.”

Who is “slime,” I asked — the person making the allegation or the Allen campaign itself? “I’m talking about the Allen campaign,” Todd said.