In the aftermath of Wednesday evening in Charleston, SC, when a white supremacist terrorist murdered nine African-American people in cold blood after they welcomed him into their church, a lot of people are demanding that South Carolina take down the Confederate flag that festoons the State Capitol and questioning why the flag remains a popular symbol in that state and many other parts of the country despite its ugly, hateful history*. It turns out that the Stars and Bars (which was not even flown at half-mast the day after the shootings as the U.S flag was) is protected by state law and controlled solely by the state legislature.
I did a search to see if South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had weighed in on that and found something astounding from last October. It seems the subject came up during Haley’s reelection campaign at a televised candidate forum.
Link with video because of course I can’t embed one here
From the transcript, emphasis mine:
“What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state. I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag,” she said.
Well alrighty then, the CEOs don’t have a problem with it! They are, after all, the people who matter. The Democratic candidate should not be let off the hook for framing his response around the state’s image and massaging the egos of bitter-ender nitwits (who wouldn’t vote for him anyway) with his “it should be given a place of respect” nonsense, but that’s the kind of pandering you’ve grown to expect from red state Democrats. But Sen. Sheheen did call for it to be taken down, which is at least a concrete stand on the existence of the flag at the Capitol, if not on the morality of it. Haley, on the other hand, is in a special world of obliviousness wherein she resides with the rest of her GOP governor counterparts, including the guy running Arizona right now.
But, as Governor Mike Pence of Indiana now knows, when your state develops a foul stench to a whole lot of regular people, they tend to bring it to the attention of the CEOs whom Republican governors lionize. Here’s hoping that happens to South Carolina with respect (pardon the pun) to that shitty hate flag of losers.
*No, not just the South. Here in Arizona, former state senator Ron Gould proudly displayed a Confederate flag in his office.
Blast from the past: Sen. John McCain running for president in 2000, in January said that he considered the Confederate flag a ”symbol of racism and slavery.” The very next day he called it a ”symbol of heritage,” a phrase used by supporters of the flag. At all times he declared that the issue should be left up to the people of South Carolina to decide without interference from outsiders. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/20/us/after-campaigning-on-candor-mccain-admits-he-lacked-it-on-confederate-flag-issue.html:
“Senator John McCain apologized today for not having called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina Statehouse when he campaigned in the state’s Republican presidential primary, saying he had compromised his principles out of political self-interest.
Mr. McCain, who built his presidential quest on a reputation for candor and patriotism, said he had equivocated on the flag issue because he feared that if his true feelings had been known it would have undermined his effort to wrest the nomination from Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. Mr. McCain said in the campaign that the divisive issues should be left to the state, as had Mr. Bush, who stood by the position today.
In a subdued speech at a luncheon a stone’s throw from the Capitol where the Confederate battle flag flies, Mr. McCain, a former Navy war hero whose ancestors fought for the South, indicted himself for a lapse in honor.
”I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary,” Mr. McCain said. ”So I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth.”
‘I do not intend for this apology to help me evade criticism for my failure,” he said.
”I will be criticized by all sides for my late act of contrition,” Mr. McCain added. ”I accept it, all of it. I deserve it. Honesty is easy after the fact when my own interests are no longer involved. I don’t seek absolution.” “