I’m a Southerner.  I’ve lived in Georgia since 1996, but before then my family moved all around the country, and I have even served my time in cold Minnesota, but my family background, my ideals and values, and my character are shaped by Southern culture.  I have a Confederate battle flag and the first flag of the Confederacy (the real “stars and bars” that the current Georgia flag is based on) hanging in my room at my fraternity house.  Of course, they have nothing, zip, zero, zilch to do with “racism” or any other card someone wants to throw at me.  I’m a proud Southerner, and my great-great-grandfather, whom my name comes from, fought for the state of North Carolina during the War Between the States because it was his home.  He did not own slaves, and had a small farm in Toisnot, N.C.

Having said all that, the reaction by some “Flaggers” in South Carolina is just ridiculous:

LEXINGTON, South Carolina (CNN) — Eight Confederate flag-waving men protested outside a Fred Thompson campaign stop Wednesday evening, one week after Thompson and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney criticized the flag during the CNN/YouTube debate in Florida.

Clad in jackets bearing the Confederate flag and holding signs reading “South Carolina hates Fred Thompson” and “Fred Thompson go home,” the protesters said Thompson was not a “true southerner.”

Jim Hanks, chairman of the South Carolina League of the South, said that Thompson’s answer at the debate was worse than Romney’s because Thompson is from a southern state.

“He’s masquerading as a good ole boy,” Hanks said.

Let’s take a look at exactly what Sen. Thompson said during the godawful CNN/YouTube debate about this issue, in its full context:

Thompson: I know that everybody who hangs the flag up in their room like that is not racist. I also know that for a great many Americans it’s a symbol of racism.

So, therefore, as a public place — he’s free to do whatever he wants to in his home. As far as a public place is concerned, I am glad that people have made the decision not to display it as a prominent flag, symbolic of something, at a state capitol. As a part of a group of flags or something of that nature, you know, honoring various servicepeople at different times in different parts of the country, I think that’s different.

But, as a nation, we don’t need to go out of our way to be bringing up things that to certain people in our country that’s bad for them.

Seems to me to be a reasonable response to me.  Though I am proud of my Southern heritage, I can understand that some symbols do not mean the same things to others as they do to me, and I respect that.  I don’t see how suggesting that a flag representing a movement of secession from the Union shouldn’t be flying from a statehouse is the hallmark of a “scalawag.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) won a hotly contested leadership race for Republican Conference chairman today, defeating Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

The vote was 31-16.

In choosing a folksy moderate best known lately for trying to broker bipartisan compromises on the war in Iraq, Senate Republicans have at least for now embraced some middle ground in their leadership hierarchy.

Alexander’s ascension to the No. 3 spot in Republican leadership may come as welcome news to his friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. But he was not necessarily the choice of party conservatives who want to more firmly embrace a more ideological, fiscally conservative future for the Senate Republican conference.

Alexander’s victory completes a reshuffling in the Republican leadership brought about by the sudden retirement of Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who was unopposed, was officially appointed as minority whip to take over from Lott, while Alexander moved up to Conference chairman to replace Kyl.

The Politico

I knew Alexander was going to win this so it came as no surprise whatsoever, but overall the leadership has still moved a little to the right.  With Kyl replacing Lott as Whip that puts us a step or two ahead altogether.  It could have been worse.