McCain Gets Tangled in Stars and Bars

by Christopher Caldwell

Bush has proposed an across-the-board cut that is not only at odds with his own moderately big-spending tenure as governor, but also actuarially impossible. In order to cut taxes deeply, Bush would have to cut programs deeply, which he'll never do. What Bush's tax cut does is leave McCain with two bad options: first, he can propose something even stupider and more implausible, and lose New Hampshire. Second, he can propose something more reasonable, and allow Bush to cast him as a left-wing pussy in South Carolina. He's done the latter, and Bush has been eating him up. With veteran-intensive South Carolina coming into play this week, McCain should have had a golden opportunity, particularly since he's got the backing of the energetic and popular Congressman Lindsey Graham.

There are only two things any presidential candidate has to talk about down there, and Bush refuses to talk about either of them. First is legalized gambling; the Democratic candidate Jim Hodges backed gambling in the 1998 elections and scored a stunning eight-point blowout of incumbent Republican David Beasley. McCain's against gambling. Bush would "leave it to the states." Second is the practice of flying the Confederate Stars and Bars over the South Carolina state capitol, which has become a hot racial potato. A TV ad campaign has compared the flag's supporters to the KKK, and state Sen. Arthur Ravenel in turn has called the NAACP the "National Association for Retarded People." When Ravenel apologized, it was hardly the apology his foes were looking for.

"I apologize to the retarded citizens of the world for putting them in the same boat as the NAACP," he said. "I was after them, but on the way to their throat, I insulted the people I love the most." (By this, Ravenel was apparently referring to his son, who has Down's syndrome.) People want a candidate to answer two questions: (1) Do you think flying the flag is racist? and (2) What should be done about it? The first question has only one correct answer. It is a racist symbol, period. The stars and bars may have stood for a variety of things -- ranging from slavery to states' rights to the Southern way of life -- when they were carried into battle in 1863. But the more recent flying of the Stars and Bars -- a practice that started in the early 1960s -- stands for only one thing: opposition to the Civil Rights movement. The second question, what to do about it, admits to many answers. A candidate could support the flying of the flag, he could call for a boycott of the state or he could say we live in a federal system and say the decision on whether to fly it is up to South Carolina. That's the position both McCain and Bush have taken. But that still leaves the first question unanswered.

McCain's instinct was to be honest. He condemned the flag as a racist symbol. Bush's instinct was to be dishonest, and to follow the Bush Family Rule of never thinking more than is absolutely necessary. When he said it was "up to the states," Dubbletalk made believe that this absolved him of any responsibility to take a stand on whether he's satisfied with the outcome of the Civil War. (He's probably not, but that's another issue.) Pressed on the question, he said, "I'm not going to say anything more." Gutsy!

McCain was on his way to a loss in South Carolina and a breakthrough in the rest of the country when he panicked, and lost everything. He explained that, while he wasn't so crazy about the flag himself, he "understood how others might not feel that way," since it was a matter of "heritage." With that, McCain pandered to racists, because the only "heritage" the flag represents is Jim Crow. Then he bragged, "I have ancestors who have fought for the Confederacy, none of whom owned slaves." With that, McCain managed to leave Southerners outraged, and with good reason. Is he saying that Americans whose ancestors owned slaves have less right to run for office than Americans who didn't? Or that voters, at least, should distrust them? Does he want to tell us what side his ancestors were on in the Highland Clearances?