From Wednesday night's Hardball (via MediaMatters):
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.
THE WASHINGTON TIMES' JOHN 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: Why they are struggling against admitting that it's a racial term, or ethnic term, right?
NEW REPUBLIC'S RYAN 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.
