The Weekly Standard as an article about the kerfuffle over Southern Methodist University’s bid to host the G.W. Bush library.

LATE LAST YEAR, dozens of faculty members at Southern Methodist University publicly opposed plans by President Bush to locate his presidential library on SMU’s campus in Dallas.

Now, ten bishops of the United Methodist Church, which owns the school, and of which President Bush is a member, are urging SMU to reject the library and are circulating a petition for others to sign.

A chief organizer in stopping the Bush library is a former professor at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, who told the Dallas Morning News that he doesn’t want his school to “hitch its future star” to the war and other aspects of President Bush’s legacy.

President and Mrs. Bush are members of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. Its pastor, the Rev. Mark Craig, is an SMU trustee who supports the library at SMU. The whole thing is, of course, just another example of Bush Derangement Syndrome, but here’s the kicker:

For decades, United Methodist bishops have largely declined to criticize their denomination’s schools as they slipped away from their Christian moorings and became virtually secular institutions. Typical campus life at Methodist schools is not behaviorally different from most other major universities. The faculty, who often adhere to the same academic fads and ideologies of secular schools, are rarely expected to sign faith statements, belong to churches, or even be reverent towards religion. Even United Methodist seminary professors sometimes reject Christian orthodoxy. Some even reject theism itself.

Bishops have almost always defended their schools’ academic independence, even as they often served on the schools’ boards and helped channel church funding to them. But hosting the presidential library of President Bush, a fellow church member, is apparently a bridge too far for some of the church’s bishops and the 4,000 other signatories to the anti-Bush library petition.

They’ve finally found a heresy which they cannot accept.

As long-time readers here know, I am an ordained pastor on the UMC and while I am utterly unsurprised at the knee-jerkiness of the 10 bishops, I am also heartened to see that at last, at last, dear heaven, they have actually decided to stand firmly for something. Okay, against something, but still . . .

As has been well reported, some Republican senators voted along with Democrats on a resolution opposing sending additional troops to Iraq. How did Tennessee’s two Republican senators come down on the issue?

Lamar Alexander emailed Nashville blogger Bill Hobbs,

The situation in Iraq is worse, and the time has come to change our strategy. I have read the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, heard recommendations from leaders in the military, and I listened carefully to President Bush’s proposal for success.

Sending 21,500 more American troops temporarily into Iraq to try to stop sectarian violence is not, by itself, new or a strategy for success.

Lamar made it clear that he strongly opposes sending more troops, but when it came time to go on the record with his vote, he did not vote for the resolution. So does he or doesn’t he support or oppose the increase? Who knows?

Our state’s freshman senator, Bob Corker, also voted against the resolution. But what does he really think? His position either has changed since the vote or it wasn’t reported accurately by media to begin with (I’ll give 50-50 either way). Soldier’s Mom reports that at first Corker was quoted thus:

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he didn’t support the resolution because he didn’t believe it would affect administration policy. Instead, he said next time he talks to Tennessee soldiers he will tell them, “I oppose what you are doing but I thank you for your service.”

That was from version one of an FNC story. But now the story has been edited and quotes Corker this way:

Republican Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he didn’t support the resolution because he didn’t believe it would affect administration policy, and he believed it wouldn’t give troops the right message.

“So, in essence, what I’ll be doing the next time if I see them, if I vote for this resolution, is to say: I’m opposed to you being there, but thank you for what you’re doing,” Corker said.

That does change the tenor of his position. But it leaves open the question of whether he would have voted aye if he had thought it would change the administration’s policy.

Thanks for taking such a clear stand, guys.

Was losing the race for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist a blessing in disguise for Harold Ford, Jr.?

That loss may be the best thing that ever happened to Harold Ford, Jr. It can be reasonably assumed that Ford has national ambitions that aspire even to the presidency. He certainly has the potential intellect and charisma for such. He has shown that he can reach across the aisle and he is extremely well-spoken.

Even he must realize that the path to the presidency rarely passes through the Senate. But it often does pass through a governor’s mansion. And Tennessee will have an open election for that domicile in just four years. Just-reelected Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) cannot run for another term.

If Harold Ford takes this advice then he will next take an executive position in a corporate environment - either business or non-profit - in the state of Tennessee. This will give him outside the beltway credentials (not to mention valuable real life world experience) beyond political office and the ability to credibly counter the argument that he has never lived in Tennessee.

He will then be primed to run for governor with an effective combination of D.C. political experience, corporate experience, a few more years of life seasoning and maturity, and some time of experiencing life in Tennessee. He now has valuable name recognition and he has gained enormous respect statewide with his admirable showings in traditional Republican areas.

Once he has completed four years in corporate life, followed by eight years as governor, he will be only 48 years old. As a former corporate executive he will understand business better. As a governor he will learn how to make hard public decisions and handle unanticipated curve balls while in the spotllight. He will be in a prime position for a nomination as a vice-presidential candidate, cabinet position, or even the Big Cheese nomination itself.

I’m no big fan of Ford. I have heard him speak - and I have seen his votes. He turned me off when I heard him address a group of military officers with his take on the War on Terror. Having just returned from Afghanistan it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. I also do not think he has the necessary “outside the beltway” experience that is so much needed in D.C. He is a product of the political class - and we need less of that. But his abilities and his appeal cannot be denied. And I do believe he occupies a worthy place in the two party system, unlike many others of his party - or of mine for that matter (I am a Republican).

It is difficult to imagine that Ford’s ambitions are behind him with this loss. The key to his future is his next step. A media job or beltway job will not help. To get over the hump in Tennessee he needs to spend some time working in Tennessee. His star may yet shine again.

Is the implication of Harold Ford’s claim that “that God had looked with favor” upon his campaign that anyone who does not vote for him is opposing God? With the latest Mason-Dixon poll showing Ford 12 points behind Republican Bob Corker (other polls are narrower), Ford and his campaigners,

… used that status yesterday not only to rally voters but as evidence that God had looked with favor upon the Democratic campaign.

The fact that they are still in the race despite the odds, Ford told an African American crowd at Mount Zion Baptist Church here, was evidence that “we got something else at work.”

“I think the congressman said something wise — we got another manager in this race,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told the group.

Now that’s chutzpah.

On “Miller in the Morning,” a Nashville call-in radio show, the Kerry “stuck in Iraq” kerfuffle played a prominent role today.

As you might expect, Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker slammed Kerry’s remarks in an on-the-air interview. Then Democrat candidate Harold Ford, Jr., also was interviewed. To his credit, he denounced Kerry’s remark. “Whatever the intent, Senator Kerry was wrong to say what he said,” proclaimed Mr. Ford. “He needs to apologize again to our troops.” Kerry has yet to apologize the first time, but I’ll not pick that nit over what Ford said. Other sites reporting this quote leave out the “again,” but I heard it with my own ears.

VolunteerVoters continues,

But Rep. Ford, who served as an honorary co-chairman of Sen. Kerry’s 2004 failed presidential bid, said that the senator’s “words don’t alter the fact that the stay-the-course strategy pursued by President Bush and supported by Bob Corker isn’t working. We need a new direction in Iraq. I know how hard our troops work, and the sacrifices they make, for our freedoms. They deserve a plan for victory as good as they are, and as senator I intend to see they get one.”

Nothing unfair about those observations, even if you don’t agree (and, btw, I do agree that what we’re doing there now doesn’t seem to be working, even though there are many unreported successes. But our successes are mostly tactical and our difficulties are chiefly strategic.)

If Ford had been a little more politically astute, he would not have used the Kerry comment as any kind of springboard to criticizing the administration’s Iraq policies, even though what he did say was prima facie unobjectionable. I think it might have been a better play to let it go for this interview or move to another topic first, then come back to Iraq later with no mention of Kerry or his comments.

I’ve covered in nauseating detail the controversy over the attempts of the mayor of my town of Franklin, Tenn., to ban the display of the Confederate battle flag in the city’s Nov. 30 commemoration of the the Civil War’s Battle of Franklin. This post isn’t about that.

It would be fair for me, having excoriated Franklin’s politicos for trying to suppress the people’s Constitutional rights (for which they may well succeed yet), to explain where I stand on the issue - not the issue of free speech, for which I am somewhat of an absolutist, but on the issue of displaying the flags of the Confederacy.

Let it be understood that Nov. 30 is the anniversary of the battle. The commemoration will feature re-enactors clothed in Civil War uniforms, although as far as I know no battle re-enactment is planned. The “Union” formation will approach the town square from one direction (I presume the north) and the “Confederate” formation from the opposite direction. Bands will play Civil War music in both formations. Presumably the Union re-enactors will carry the 34-star Union flag or regimental colors; there was no widely-used Union “battle flag,” as far as I can tell. There was a square version of the US flag sometimes used as a battle flag, but whether it was used at Franklin I do not know, and I doubt whether anyone else does.

The square CSA battle flag, however, was very widely used. This flag is thought by many to be the “Stars and Bars” flag, but it wasn’t. The Stars and Bars was one of the national-government flags of the CSA and was conventional in design. In fact, if you didn’t know what it was when you saw it, you wouldn’t have any reason to connect it to the Confederacy. The Battle Flag was almost without doubt used at Franklin. It was so popular with Southern units that the Confederate Congress enacted in May 1863 that that Battle Flag’s design be used as the union field of the second Confederate national flag.

So for historical accuracy alone the Battle Flag should be carried by re-enactors of the Confederate formation, just as the Union “troops” will doubtless hoist the 32-star flag, not today’s version.

Reading about “the War,” as the Civil War used to be called in the South until well after World War II, it becomes clear that soldiers on both sides revered their flags with an intensity that we moderns almost cannot understand. The soldier with the shortest life expectancy in battle was the color bearer, yet there was never a shortage of volunteers to bear the flag or to form the color guard, who usually lived not much longer. When color bearers fell in battle, another soldier would snatch the flag up, often before it hit the ground. Thus all applied not only to the national colors but the regimental colors or state flags that flapped abundantly among the armies.

Surprisingly, though, at the end of the war Confederate soldiers and officers who retained their colors encased them forever. It was extremely rare in the Old South for any kind of CSA flag to be publicly displayed for almost 100 years after the war ended. The reason? There was near-universal sentiment among surviving Confederate veterans, passed on for two or three generations, that the Confederacy’s colors could rightfully be flown only over an independent Southern nation. But that independence (such as it briefly was) ended in 1865 and therefore the CSA’s flag was retired by those who had fought and bled for it. Hence, for decades after 1865, the only time the CSA flag was flown was in solemn anniversary commemorations or perhaps at funerals, and maybe not even then. (At funerals of CSA veterans, the flag was almost always draped over the casket.)

My ancestral families fought on both sides of the war. My great-great grandfather and his two brothers fought as members of the 11th Tennessee Regiment; one brother was killed at the Battle of Murfreesboro. Another g2-grandfather was a Union officer in the 16th Pennsylvania who had a leg shot off at Chancellorsville, where Union General “Fighting Joe” Hooker didn’t live up to his nickname.

Yet another g2-grandfather was a CSA soldier who was captured by the Union and imprisoned in Nashville. He may be the only American POW whose wife busted him out of prison. She, in turn, was sexually assaulted in her own kitchen by a Yankee soldier. A proper Southern lady, she defended her virtue with great vigor by taking a large, oaken rolling pin and slamming him on the head. He dropped like a rock. As he fell, she shoved him out her back door onto the porch. Later, two of his buddies took him away, whether dead or alive Grandma never learned.

My mother still has the rolling pin. Grandma smashed that Yankee so hard the rolling pin cracked from one end to the other. It is a treasured heirloom.

My wife’s maiden name was Stephens. Her great-great-great uncle was Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy.

My Southern roots go deep, the first Sensing having immigrated to North Carolina from Germany before 1740. So what about the Confederacy?

We tend to have a romanticized view of what the Old South was like until 1865. “Gone With the Wind,” is a sort of cultural model, but it’s wildly inaccurate. In fact, for Africans or their descendants and poor whites alike (and there were many of them), life was “nasty, brutish and short.” Alexis de Tocqueville, touring America in the 1830s, wrote that the only places in America where the American dream was broken was in the slave-holding states. He compared “industrious Ohio” with “idle Kentucky,” and blamed slavery for causing white Kentuckians to be “a people without energy, ardor [or] enterprise.”

Slavery was without excuse or redeeming quality. There is no positive thing that can be said about it. Despite the idyllic life GWTW portrayed Tara’s slaves as having, Africans and their descendants suffered cruelly. Discipline was enforced corporally and almost always harshly. However, discipline in both armies was cruelly enforced as well. The Union Army used punishments today universally called torture: branding, being tied up by the thumbs, riding the “wooden mule” (a narrow rail set too high for his feet to touch the ground), or being tied for hours spread-eagled on carriage wheel. So the whippings and brutality used against slaves was also used by the same Army that liberated the slaves. “Cruelty” apparently had a different connotation back then regardless of who was its victims.

Even so, Abraham Lincoln was perfectly correct when he said, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” The Lost Cause was rightfully lost and wrongfully defended. Yes, it’s true, as historians have pointed out, that only a minority of Southerners owned slaves and that most Southern soldiers were fighting more to defend their homes against Northern invasion than to preserve slavery. And it is true that tens of thousands of Southerners fled north and joined the Union Army - more Tennesseans fought for the Union than the Confederacy.

None of this matters. As James McPherson elegantly showed in his award-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom, slavery was not the only cause of the war, but it was the only factor without which the war would not have been fought. To claim, as many Southern apologists do, that the South wasn’t really fighting to preserve slavery is to be either woefully uninformed about history or to be willfully in denial. The Southern economy was slave-centered. Southern politics were slave-centered.

Nor does it serve to point out, correctly though irrelevantly, that the North’s purpose (that is, Lincoln’s) was not to free the slaves but to preserve the antebellum political Union. Full-Union patriotism was very strong in the North, but would not have sustained the war effort as the war dragged on. In issuing the Emancipation procalamation, Lincoln took advantage of the very strong Northern, anti-slavery sentiment that was already there, and which he realized he must tap to achieve his original war aims. Long before war’s end, the Union was engaged in full-blown American Holy War and the original goal of Unon preservation had taken a back seat to emancipation in the public mind. That may all be true but it does not redeem the irredeemable fact that prewar Southern life was arranged around chattel slavery. The indefensible cannot be defended.

Most people don’t know that the modern resurgence of displaying the Confederate flag only dates from the 1950s, and was started by Southern Democrats in protest of integration and civil rights rulings by US federal courts. You may recall the tempest in a teapot in the 2000 campaign about South Carolina flying the Confederate flag over its capitol building, below the US flag. That practice was only begun in 1962 (plus or minus a couple of years) and was initiated by the then-governor of the state, Democrat Fritz Hollings, later the US Senator representing Disney, AOL-Time Warner and other megacorporate concerns.

In my view it is appropriate to fly Confederate flags as historical reminders or to recognize that the Confederacy’s soldiers, however evil the cause they fought for, were American men whose legacy we still bear and struggle with. But to use the CSA’s battle flag as an emblem of “Southern pride,” or Southern culture or white supremacy is repugnant. As a son of the South I love so much about this region of the country and the people who live here. I wish there was a different insignia that Southerners could display to show their pride and love of the South. But the battle flag is, very unfortunately, the only insignia that is universally recognized here and elsewhere as distinctively Southern. A woman I know well told me awhile back that the anti-Southern bigotry in America has never gone away (yes, it’s very real and very powerful). “They are trying to take away our history,” she said. “It’s ethnic cleansing by another name.” She does have a point. I think that is one reason the battle flag resurged again over the last 20 years or so. It’s a symbol of pushing back. It won’t be surrendered soon.

I do not own any Confederate flag. The American flag flies daily outside my door. Long may it wave.

‘’The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and aspirations. . . . Lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, . . . take your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished - a reunited country.'’ Jefferson Davis

Voltaire once remarked to an adversary, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.” Those words could never pass the lips of the city officials of my town of Franklin, Tenn. They seem to believe in crushing our right to say anything they don’t approve of.

On Nov. 30 a commemoration of 1864’s Battle of Franklin is planned. I recounted yesterday the major local controversy over Mayor Tom Miller’s edict that the Confederate battle flag may not be displayed, but that the “Stainless Banner” flag must be used. Note: Miller hasn’t simply banned city sponsorship of displays of the battle flag; he had directed that private citizens may not display it, either.

There’s an old saying that tyranny exists when that which is not forbidden is required. Study that sentence, Mayor Miller. You have on the one hand forbidden one kind of speech and on the other required other speech. That’s a terrible two-fer.

But it gets much worse. The Tennessean reports today,

Franklin city attorney Doug Berry would not comment but said a “First Amendment area” will be set aside during the ceremony for people who may want to express their views.

A “First Amendment area“? Mr. Berry, the entire United States is a First Amendment area! You have no authority to decide where a citizen may or may not exercise his/her Constitutional rights! They are not yours to grant - they come from Almighty God himself!

This is creeping tyranny, and I hope my fellow Franklin residents awaken to this danger. I call for Mayor Miller and Mr. Berry to resign immediately.

I am reminded of the 2004 Bush campaign when the Secret Service established “free speech zones” for protestors. These zones were always well away from where the president would be speaking. I lambasted them then and said at the time that George W. Bush was no champion of free speech. SFGate reported then,

The ACLU, along with several other organizations, is suing the Secret Service for what it charges is a pattern and practice of suppressing protesters at Bush events in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. The ACLU’s Witold Walczak said of the protesters, “The individuals we are talking about didn’t pose a security threat; they posed a political threat.”

Memo to the ACLU: Franklin is about 15 miles south of Nashville. Call me.