Huckabee's Hate Flag

Mike Huckabee, campaigning recently in South Carolina, declared that the federal government should have no opinion on decisions about state flags, claiming the matter "has no business from the president of the United States." Speaking specifically about the Confederate Flag, Huckabee said, "You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do." In other words, our nation's leader should remain silent about a long-recognized icon of hatred and injustice.

That's moral leadership?

Despite Minister Huckabee’s Christian faith, his inability to reject the Confederate Flag sent a coded message to the Conservative base meant to suggest, “I’m a bigot like you!”

Some Southerners remain incapable of accepting the defeat of the Civil War. Visit a hundred diners in the Northeast and you will never hear mention of the Civil War. But put hidden tape recorders in a hundred diners south of the Mason Dixon Line and you will capture regular comments on the “War of Northern Aggression.”

Despite the immorality of slavery, the humiliation of the South remains a smoldering insult, and some fly the Confederate Flag to vent their anger. Rather than speak about what the flag really means to them, they claim the flag represents the lost “Southern way of life” or is a "symbol of lost heritage." But what do those phrases mean - that Southerners have lost the right to sip mint juleps? Of course not. They're euphemisms for lost slavery. Southern life revolved around the economic bounty of enslaving and the social lift of belittling kidnapped Africans.

Wealthy Southerners needed slavery to maintain their wealth. And poor white Southerners needed slavery to maintain their social status. They may have been poor, but at least they weren’t slaves. So the Emancipation Proclamation and the ensuing, bitter, devastating military defeat placed poor Southern whites on a par with people previously denigrated and looked down upon, an adjustment still apparently taking place.

For decades now, the Confederate Flag has represented injustice, racism, discrimination, segregation, lynching, intolerance and inhumanity, the apparent core values of the old “Southern way of life” and "heritage." Mike Huckabee’s coded embrace of it was a grotesque and un-Christian gesture, and reveals much about his character, or lack of it.

- JT Compton
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The Hillary Anger Mystery

“Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back To The White House?” That’s the question Maureen Dowd asked in her New York Times column today. And as much as I revere Maureen’s abilities as a writer and cultural observer, her take on the Clinton candidacy mirrors the current position of the rest of the media establishment; they despise Hillary Clinton and seem willing to go to any length to eviscerate her.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

Sure, I understand why narrow-minded conservative rednecks dislike her after hearing decades of demonizing smears and conspiracy theories from losers like Rush Limbaugh. He’s blamed her for everything bad under the sun. But for people with more than two brain cells to rub together, why do some bear such an intense rage against her?

The same journalists (and some moderates, for that matter) who spit while saying her name still want to treat convicted felons like Scooter Libby with a modicum of respect, and they continue to approach demonstrably despicable public officials like Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales within the framework of decency. But not Hillary.

I’m sure it’s been psychoanalyzed to death, but it still amazes me, the dismissive, flash-anger response to her. I’ve never heard anyone give a well-considered, meaningful account of their negative feelings. All I’ve heard are vagaries and superficial annoyances.

“She’ll do anything to get elected.” And the others won't? To suggest that any candidate won't do anything more or less than Hillary to get elected is entirely bogus. They’ve all equivocated and calculated and strategized—that’s what modern politics require.

“She’s secretive and conniving and mean.” Really? In what ways that are materially different than any other politician running? Please. Rudy can be as mean as a snake, and Huckabee's attacks on Romney were schoolyard nasty. The current Bush administration is the most secretive and opaque and mean-spirited in our lifetime, even worse than the disgraceful and un-American presidency of Richard Nixon. It bends credulity to think that Hillary will relinquish her party’s history of greater presidential transparency than the Republicans. This entire criticism is a hollow dodge.

“She’s crying her way to the White House.” So far, she’s only teared up once. Meanwhile, Rudy is 9-11-ing his way to the White House, Huckabee is Jesus-ing his way to the White House, and Obama is rhetoric-ing his way to the White House. How many more times will Obama shout “We’re changing the world!” before people realize it’s just a hollow slogan.

To be sure, I like Barack Obama. He’s a magnificent orator and would make a better President than any of the Republicans. But then any of the Democrats would. The Republican field is a mostly backward looking, militaristic, small-government-obsessed group of old-school white country-club types. Just like George W. Bush, more of the same. But though Obama talks a good talk, he’s done nothing to convince me that he will be able to translate his pie-in-the-sky rhetoric, his new paradigm, into actual results.

And everything in my experience tells me that new paradigms are usually a recipe for disappointment. Remember the Internet bubble? It was supposed to be a new financial paradigm, and legions of tech weenies spread across the corporate landscape scolding non-believers who questioned the new model of the dot com boom. Yet after the tech bubble burst, it turned out there was no new paradigm. The rules of finance were just as valid then as ever.

Remember the Iraq invasion? The post 9-11 world requires a new paradigm, a new way of deterring enemies from striking us. Or does it? Turns out, the same old rules still apply. When you break it, you own it. When you invade, you become the monster your enemies have always accused you of being. When you kill innocent civilians, no matter what your intentions, you create legions of new enemies. When you force Democracy at the point of a gun you get something worse. No new paradigm here.

So whatever new paradigm Obama is touting, I remain a skeptic. Meanwhile, I know that Hillary is a hard worker and a shrewd coalition builder. She’ll choose good people for the important roles in her administration, not for the Bush reason that they gave a lot of money, but because they can do a good job. She’ll reverse so many of the grotesque and lamentable policy disasters of the Bush mess. And talk about change--Obama’s mantra--a woman president represents just as revolutionary a change as an African American male president.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to wait for the bile-spewers to put their bitterness of Hillary into a meaningful and beyond-hearsay rationale. So far, they haven’t come close. They've simply spun stories that create controversy and drama to sell "news" but are unsupported by facts. Don't be hatin'!

- JT Compton
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