Case of GOP Lockjaw

The controversy over the Confederate flag atop the South Carolina Statehouse will be decided locally, as it should be, but without valuable guidance from Republican presidential contenders George W. Bush, John McCain and Steve Forbes. They have chosen to duck or waffle on an issue on which they could use their bully pulpits to inspire, instruct and lead.

When prodded, Bush stuck his political neck out only far enough to say he would not allow the Confederate flag to fly over the capitol in Texas, where he is governor. McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, who initially declared the South Carolina flag offensive, subsequently sided with people who view it not as a symbol of slavery but as a symbol of heritage. Forbes, a businessman, insists the American flag should fly higher than the Confederate flag in Columbia, the South Carolina capital.

Democratic candidates former Sen. Bill Bradley and Vice President Al Gore say they would remove the banner, the battle flag of the Confederate army during the Civil War. Their party’s loyal support from African American voters makes their stance easy but no less correct.

The leading GOP candidates all conveniently avoided the only issue that matters: What is right. Does South Carolina’s early primary (Feb. 19), considered must-win by GOP presidential nominees, cast a shadow on this debate? Are Republican front-runners pandering to the same racial politics that transformed the GOP from the party of Lincoln to a party embraced a little too comfortably by formerly die-hard segregationists?

The Confederate flag cannot be divorced from its history. It remains a symbol of the Old South, secession, slavery, racial hatred and the Ku Klux Klan. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.

The flag has flown from the statehouse in Columbia only since 1962, which marked the Civil War centennial. South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, is expected to call for the removal of the flag today in his State of the State address. Faced with a tourism boycott by the NAACP, Hodges is expected to seek a legislative compromise, such as moving the controversial flag to a monument to Confederate soldiers on the statehouse grounds. The move could cost him politically, but that’s the price of leadership. It’s a lesson that the GOP presidential candidates need to learn.