Answering a question that has become a litmus test of sorts for Republicans campaigning in the South, Rudolph W. Giuliani said Tuesday that he would leave the decision about whether to fly the Confederate battle flag over the State Capitol here to the people of Alabama.
"One of the great beauties of the kind of government we have, which is a national/federal government, is that we can make - on a broad range of issues - we can make different decisions in different parts of the country," Mr. Giuliani said. "We have different sensitivities, and at different times we are going to come to different decisions, and I think that is best left up to the states."
The best part? Guiliani is more gung-ho about the stars and bars than most Alabamians-
The Confederate battle flag has not flown over the Alabama Capitol for a number of years, and there is no current campaign to return it there.
For just a crash course in American history, "states' rights" is a terminology that the budding conservative movement in the 1960's coined in order to support racist policies (namely opposition to the civil rights legislation) without overtly expressing racism. It is how the conservative movement rose from the ashes of Barry Goldwater's monumental loss to LBJ in 1964 by appealing to racist white voters in order to co-opt the dixiecrat wing of the Democratic party.
Nixon's "Southern Strategy" brought it into presidential politics, and perhaps it peaked when Ronald Reagan at the urging of then-congressman Trent Lott, went to Philiadelphia, Mississippi where 3 civil rights activists were lynched in the 60's and proudly proclaimed his support for "states rights" in the first major speech of the 1980 presidential campaign.
Et tu, Rudy? |
