Wonkette flags this passage from a World Magazine profile of George Allen:

Allen actually had a pretty credible defense for what he said. No one—including The Washington Post, which featured the story repeatedly for several weeks—ever demonstrated that “macaca” really has such murky racial connotations in any language. But in northern Italy, where Allen’s mother had close family connections, “macaca” does seem to mean “clown” or “buffoon.” Allen says now that’s what he was trying to communicate.

Josh Marshall interprets this passage as meaning “it’s a word he picked up from his mom and it means buffoon”; Wonkette suggests the same interpretation (“now we’re blaming mom again”).

However, the wording of the article is actually unclear. The statement “Allen says now that’s what he was trying to communicate” could mean that Allen has said he was trying to call the Webb cameraman a clown or buffoon (ie the “shithead” alibi, which followed several others), not that he acknowledged picking it up from his mother. Without further clarification from World, we don’t know.

In related news, the Tradesports futures market puts George Allen’s chances of winning the GOP presidential nomination at about five percent, down from a high of close to forty.

Update 9/23 3:16 PM: Red State asks similar questions about the meaning of the World Magazine passage. I’ve emailed World for clarification.

Update 9/24 3:43 PM: Writing in Newsweek, Jonathan Alter appears to endorse the Marshall/Wonkette interpretation:

First [Allen] said he didn’t know what the word meant, then that he made it up from the word “Mohawk,” and, most recently, that it’s Italian for “buffoon.”