Prompted by The New Republic's Ryan Lizza during the August 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews suggested that Senator George F. Allen's (R-VA) mother's ties to the North African nation of Tunisia might explain how Allen came to use the derogatory term “macaca” to describe one of his opponent's campaign volunteers. As Media Matters for America noted, while the word's use as a slur originates in North Africa, many media figures who reported Allen's claim not to know what the term means -- including Matthews, during the August 15 edition of Hardball -- left out the fact that Allen's mother grew up in Tunisia, a former French colony in North Africa, as Allen himself has repeatedly noted in the past. However, discussing the incident on the August 16 edition of Hardball, Lizza noted: "[T]he interesting twist on all of this is his mom is French Tunisian, and this is a word that's used in North Africa." Matthews responded: “I think it's a term that is not so unfamiliar to people” and seemed to agree with Lizza's suggestion that Allen may have known what the term meant, stating: “Well, I can understand why he doesn't want to say, 'Mommy taught me this word.' ”

From a discussion among Matthews, Lizza, and Washington Times columnist John McCaslin on the August 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Up next, another apology from 2008 presidential hopeful George Allen after calling a rival campaign worker a macaca. You're watching Hardball on MSNBC.

[commercial break]

ALLEN [video clip]: So welcome. Let's give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.

MATTHEWS: That's going to haunt that guy. That's Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia calling a rival campaign worker a macaca. Here to assess the damage is The Washington Times' John McCaslin and The New Republic's Ryan Lizza. Ryan Lizza, you broke some stories before about George Allen. What were they?

LIZZA: The biggest news in this piece I wrote was this spring was that -- his relationship with the Confederate flag. I mean, the strangest thing is it goes all the way back to high school. He wore a Confederate flag lapel pin in his high school picture.

MATTHEWS: Does this fit?

LIZZA: So it's a pattern here.

MATTHEWS: What's the pattern?

LIZZA: The pattern is insensitivity on race and intolerance and a guy that just doesn't really get it.

MATTHEWS: Macaca, from what I understand, John, is a term used by the Algerians and the other French people who lived in northern Africa when they were living up there and colonizing the place, that they used against the local Arabs, north Africans.

McCASLIN: Right, right. And I once chased a macaca around South Africa on a safari one time, which Americans spend a lot of money to do. So it's also --

MATTHEWS: You mean a monkey?

McCASLIN: -- a term for a monkey in South Africa.

MATTHEWS: Well, what's this about, here?

McCASLIN: I think it's about --

MATTHEWS: Is this Howard Cosell again, or what is it?

McCASLIN: I don't think this is going to go away, if you're getting to that. I think that the media is going to slowly pick up on it in a time when there's a lot of other stories happening.

MATTHEWS: He's saying he was referring to the guy's haircut, not his ethnicity, even though he said, “Welcome to America,” and the guy's a citizen.

LIZZA: The latest excuse that they leaked today is that he didn't say “macaca,” he didn't call him a monkey, he called him an s-“you know what”-head. That he put together the word “mohawk” and “caca.” And they were calling him --

MATTHEWS: Caca means crap.

LIZZA: Exactly. And they were calling him a --

MATTHEWS: A craphead?

LIZZA: Exactly. So that's his first --

MATTHEWS: Why they are struggling against admitting that it's a racial term, or ethnic term, right?

LIZZA: Right. They're saying he didn't know what it was. I mean, the interesting twist on all this is his mom is French Tunisian. And this is a word that's used in North Africa to describe --

MATTHEWS: We just had Shimon Peres here, the longtime great man of Israel. He knew the term.

LIZZA: Is that right?

MATTHEWS: Oh, yeah.

LIZZA: That's fascinating, then.

MATTHEWS: I think it's a term that is not so unfamiliar to people.

LIZZA: Look, he grew up in a house where his mom spoke five languages. It's not a big leap of the imagination to think that he --

MATTHEWS: Well, I can understand why he doesn't want to say, “Mommy taught me this word.”

McCASLIN: And a very outspoken mother at that. I reviewed the book in 2000 that George Allen's sister Jennifer wrote, and I know Ryan wrote about it just this last April. She's a very outspoken lady.