Huck and the Confederate flag

Huckabee has stepped in it in South Carolina over the Confederate flag. Here's what he said today:

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Huckabee said at a Myrtle Beach campaign event. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."

Later, in Florence, he repeated the remarks. "I know what would happen if somebody comes to my state in Arkansas and tells us what to do, it doesn't matter what it is, tell us how to run our schools, tell us how to raise our kids, tell us what to do with our flag — you want to come tell us what to do with the flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole."

What he's doing here is trying to set up a contrast with John McCain, who cheesed off some conservative voters there in the past for calling for the flag's removal (it was taken down from over the State Capitol a few years ago). There's a part of me that agrees with Huckabee, generally. One grows weary of the sense that any expression of regional and cultural pride on the part of Anglo-Saxon Southerners is morally tainted by slavery and segregation.

On the other hand, the plain fact is the Confederate battle flag went up over the Capitol in 1962, as a sign not of honorable regional pride, but of white power and Jim Crow defiance. What are black citizens of the state -- today, nearly one out of three South Carolinians -- supposed to think of such a thing? Given the racist context in which the flag was raised over the Capitol building, I find it hard to object to its having been taken down, if only as a matter of charity, prudence and reconciliation.

Look, I am proud to be a Southerner, and I think it is absolutely possible to be proud of one's Southern heritage while at the same time conscious and repentant of the racial injustice that is inextricably part of its past. Still, too much evil was done under that banner for it ever to be merely a benign symbol of regional pride. I wish this weren't true, but it is, and we white Southerners who love our homeland but hate what our ancestors did to black people have to live with that. Just because obnoxious Yankees say it doesn't make it untrue.

And so, I regret that Huckabee picked up this issue today in an attempt to exploit regional resentment for his campaign's benefit. I truly don't believe that's the kind of man he is. What most people don't know is that when he was governor, Mike Huckabee spoke at the 40th anniversary ceremony commemorating the integration of Little Rock Central High, which occasioned an outpouring of racial hate back in 1957. The speech Gov. Huckabee gave was the day's most memorable by far, or so Paul Greenberg, the great Arkansas journalist, told my colleague. Many tears were shed over it. Read the speech for yourself, and see what kind of man Mike Huckabee is. Here's an excerpt:

Some have asked: how long are we going to deal with this Central crisis situation? Are we going to have to relive it every few years? And I know there were some who were frankly made to feel very uncomfortable about all of these activities because some felt that it would just resurrect feelings and anxieties.

Well, let me tell you how long we will deal with it -- until justice is the same for every human being whether he or she is black or white, we will deal with it. Until the same rules apply to get a bank loan for every person regardless of who he or she is, we will deal with it. As long as there are whites who turn around and see a black person coming and bring fear to their hearts, we will deal with it. And as long as there are blacks who look and see and have resentment toward a white person, we will deal with it. We will deal with it until the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King lives in all of our hearts, and that is that we will judge people by the character of their hearts and not by the color of their skin.

Let me remind us: Government can do some things, but only God can change people's hearts. Government can put us in the same classrooms, but government can't make classmates go home and be friends when school is out. Government can make sure that the doors of every public building are open to everyone. Government can ensure that we share schools and streets and lunch counters and buses and elevators and theaters. But let us never forget that only God can give us the power to love each other and respect each other and share life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with every American, regardless of who he or she is.

That's who Mike Huckabee is. He ought to have left well enough alone on that flag issue. Anyway, Jack Cafferty cracked wise on CNN this afternoon that people who decide who ought to be president in this country based on how they feel about the Confederate flag flying over South Carolina are too dopey to vote. Said Cafferty: "We got real problems in this country, and that flag ain't one of 'em." Yep.