Quite obviously, any of you who feels that Mike Huckabee's remark was meant as anything other than the fact that he feels that government should not interfere with the state's decisions on such matters as flying of their flag has never been to Mike Huckabee's website nor read any of his books, nor looked into his stellar record in Arkansas (voted one of the top 5 best governors in the US).

If you want to read a negative racism theme in somewhere it just doesn't exist take a look inward at yourself. Maybe that's where the problem lies.

It certainly DOESN'T lie with Mike Huckabee.

Sorry, but you're wrong on this one, and Hitchens is right. Whatever his own feelings about race, Huckabee was pandering to white racists on this one. If his position is that it's SC's right to fly the confederate flag over their state house, even if it's a racist symbol, then he ought to say both parts of that, not just plump up the audience on the states' rights issue and leave the other unsaid. That's lame and dishonest, and you know it.

Similarly, it's dishonest for Huckabee to play down the religious angle and say stuff along the lines of, "I don't want to be thought of as the Christian candidate" and simultaneously use the "Christian Leadership" slogan where he sees it will play well, and at a supposedly political rally give a testimony in hopes of attracting votes. He can't run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, but that's just what he's doing.

Let me add that though I'm way too left-wing (and have too much of a modern mind) to vote for Huckabee, I don't think Huckabee's a bad guy, but this conduct in the campaign makes me think a good deal worse of him than I did before.

"Whatever his own feelings about race, Huckabee was pandering to white racists on this one."

Which makes you the only bigot around here.

You think the flag means racist, therefore, you think that people can't have pride without hating black people.

You are a sick individual who is scape goating southerners to hide from the fact that you are the real racist.

Don't know that much about Arkansas in particular but if you are a southerner, as I am, you know as well as I do that a loudly expressed reverence for the Confederate flag represents something more that appreciation of southern culture.

San:

You think the flag means racist, therefore, you think that people can't have pride without hating black people.

Well, as a practical matter of fact, the confederate flag IS inseparable from racism. People can have pride without hating black people. They can also have pride without flying the Confederate flag, which frankly stands for little else. Until the South seceded, there WAS no confederate flag. And if anybody wants to lay on the bullshit about "pride in southern culture," they need to explain exactly what that culture consists of and how slavery is not part of it.

San, you must be kidding. As a criminal defense lawyer in a southern state, I represent people who flaunt the confederate flag all the time. Their message is unambiguous and few bother to deny it. It is offensive to Blacks, it is offensive to moderate Southerners, it is offensive to decent Republican Southerners. The "economic issues" or "heritage" excuses I joked about in another comment are simply code for White Pride. It, along with the swastika, is an acknowledged symbol for these people.

Please, defend Robert E. Lee and defend superior Southern military skills during the Civil War. But the Confederate flag as it is commonly displayed today is an unambiguous symbol of hate. In Law School, Professor Laurence Friedman read a letter from an educated Southerner during the Civil War in which he expressed his torment over one question. What if Negroes were actually human beings? If that were true, he wrote, then we are horribly wrong. That man who fought for the South would now condemn the display of the flag if not very sensitively considered.

Huckabee is not a racist, I am certain of that. But he made a mistake in bringing up the Confederate flag.

Huckabee may not be a racist, but isn't that irrelevant? Hitchens' point is that Huckabee used coded language to appeal to racist sentiment in order to gin up votes. As such, it's an act of moral depravity - presuming to appear sanctimonious while making a manipulative appeal to other's base instincts.

"...any of you who feels that Mike Huckabee's remark was meant as anything other than the fact that he feels that government should not interfere with the state's decisions on such matters as flying of their flag..."

But, my dear, that's not what Huck said. Did you even read the article? Hitchins quoted him as saying "You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag." Notice, no reference to government there?

Hitch went on to point out that the S.C. legislature, not "people from outside", nor the federal government, had the Confederate flag ("your" flag?) removed from the state capitol dome.

It's perfectly true that many people outside of S.C. were appalled that it flew the Confederate flag over the state capital for so long, and voiced that opinion - free speech, and all that - but that's not "telling you what to do", it's responding to the symbolic message; and that segregationist message was quite clear to all concerned when the rebel flag was put up in 1962. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. You can wave your index finger as you wish in this free country, but you ought not be shocked if you get rude replies.

I take issue with the idea that Huckabee's record as governor was "stellar." Huckabee spent 10 years soliciting gratuities and gifts from supporters, flying around the country in the state airplane to promote his right-wing dominionist books, and making the state the butt of redneck jokes. Any progress made in the state was made despite Huckabee, not because of him. He was famous for his unwillingness to work with the legislature, and was hated by both Republicans and Democrats. Note that many Arkansas Republicans are working diligently to prevent Huckabee from winning the Republican nomination.

The fact that Time named Huckabee one of the nation's best governors says a lot more about his glad-handing and self-promotion, and the gullibility of the "left-wing media" than it does about the Huckster's abilities as an administrator.

Folks,

San is a troll on the two issues of religion and racism. Has been for quite a while.

His failure to stay within the bounds of normal discussion basically got him "ignored" out of Jurisprudence and Supreme Court Dispatches discussions,

So my recommendation is to not bother engaging with him. Facts and logic don't matter.

I had a conversation with Waylon Jennings years ago in which we discussed the use of the rebel flag as a symbol of southern heritage. He first stated that there were several hundred flags used during the civil war, and that all of them represent southern heritage. At this point I thought he was making an argument in support of the flag, but he continued by asking all those present this question: Why would southerners choose to use the one flag chosen fro use by the Klu Klux Xlan? My question then is. why would southerners continue using that one flag, when they have so many to choose from, after they've seen that the use of this particular flag has caused pain too so many others? The answer is as clear as the fact that it was the south that held slaves, it was the south which gave birth to the KKK, and it was the south that has fought against racial equality from day one.