Dixie Flag Wags Bush
by David J. Gonzo
January 15, 2000 -- NEW YORK (AmpolNS) -- It's frequently said that in politics, the tail wags the dog.
One such case has been described in recent issues of Ampol: the "tail" being the historic Confederate flag. While the entire field of GOP POTUS-wannabes has weighed in, the "dog" most wagged has been front-runner George W. Bush.
At the South Carolina GOP debate on January 7th, a boisterous event whose loud and quite conspicuously "lubricated" audience provided ample evidence that intolerance is alive and well in America, Bush was confronted by a question concerning South Carolina flying the flag of Dixie over its capitol. Here is a transcript of the exchange:
Brian Williams: Gov. Bush, a few blocks from here, on top of the state capitol building, the Confederate flag flies with the state flag and the US flag. It is, as you can hear from the reaction of tonight's crowd of 3,000 people from South Carolina, a hot-button issue here. The question is: does the flag offend you personally?
Bush: The answer to your question is, and what you're trying to get me to do is to express the will of the people of South Carolina, is what you're trying to get...
Williams: No, I'm asking you about your personal opinion.
Bush: The people of South Carolina, Brian, I believe the people of South Carolina can figure out what to do with this flag issue. It's the people of South Carolina...
Williams: If I may...
Bush: I don't believe it's the role of someone from outside South Carolina and someone running for president to come into this state and tell the people of South Carolina what to do with their business when it comes to the flag.
Williams: As an American citizen, do you have a visceral reaction to seeing the Confederate flag --
Bush: As an American citizen, I trust the people of South Carolina to make the decision for South Carolina.
It therefore follows that he can trust his constituents in Texas to make that decision for the state he governs.
Which is just what they've begun to do -- in an manner which will make Bush's handling of the flag issue a national election issue.
Yesterday, Gary Bledsoe, President of the Texas NAACP, officially asked Bush to support its efforts to have the Confederate flag removed from a plaque on the Texas Supreme Court building. In a letter to Bush, Bledsoe asked him to publicly declare that the flag is offensive to minority groups who associate the flag with slavery in the South prior to and during the Civil War. The letter read, in part:
We are not asking you to personally condemn the flag, but to say simply that it honestly offends a large segment of the population and therefore should not be used as an official public symbol, particularly in a location like our highest court where people go to try and obtain justice.
Bush campaign spokesman Scott McClellan gave a preview of the arguments that Bush may draw on in a formal reply to the NAACP in his statement responding to Bledsoe's request: "Texas proudly flies the Texas and American flags over our state buildings. Throughout our capital complex, there are many historical representations of the six different governments that governed Texas in the past. Texas is a diverse state and we are proud of our diversity and we certainly hope people are not trying to politicize this is in the context of presidential campaign... [Gov. Bush] recognizes there are strong emotions on both sides."
At a time when the GOP is stepping up outreach to ethnic minorities, the Confederate flag issue looms ominously over this initiative -- and not just among America's Blacks. The GOP is attempting to court Hispanics and undo much of the damage party extremists such as Dan Burton have done to relations between Asians and the Republican Party.
The manner in which Bush and the RNC handle this touchy issue may well prove pivotal for the party's relations with the nation's ethnic minorities. Make no mistake: many in the party see this as an opportunity to open the "big umbrella" -- and are worried that a tactical bungle by their party's presidential front-runner will snap that umbrella shut for at least another four years.
Now the flag of Dixie is wagging Bush -- and his party.
Our "Off the Radar" piece on the woes befalling Pennsylvania state Rep. Thomas W. Druce yielded some interesting e-mail from readers in Pennsylvania, who have provided a few more nuggets on this story.
One of them pointed out that the Bucks County Courier-Times, who had reported on an investigation into the possibility that Druce was involved in a hit-and-run accident that killed Kenneth Cains, described in one news report as "a near-indigent African American man," did not mention the man's ethnicity or near-indigent status.
A couple of our readers added some details we had not been aware of: the vehicle Druce had returned a few months before the state lease was up had in fact been repaired by a local body shop that replaced a damaged hood, front end, windshield, front fender and bumper cover -- they turned over the the bumper to Harrisburg Police, who now also have the vehicle, recovered from its next owner (from Auburn, New York).
One mentioned "speculation that there was a woman in the car with Druce" -- and an eerie parallel to an incident involving the wife of the Philadelphia Eagles' director of public relations who hit a man changing a tire on the curb of the Schuykill Expressway, then took off. The woman also arranged repair and trade-in of her vehicle. Fortunately, the man's wife saw the car driving away -- and in this case the woman was caught.
Well, well, as one reader pointed out, looks like the story was far worse for Mr. Druce than we had portrayed.
Let's see how the party of "the rule of law" handles this scandal.