Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Ok, I swear to god I will post something about technology sometime soon...
After the debate last night and all the hoopla about the Confederate Flag, I have to say, some people (Edwards, Zell) need to shut the fuck up.
Here is the stump speech quote by Dean that started all this:

I intend to talk about race during this election in the South. The Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us, and I'm going to bring us together. Because you know what? White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too.

Pretty mundane don't your think?

Now, first off, watching the debate, if Al Sharpton wants to actually be offended, that's his right. Maybe he doesn't want people with confederate flags on their truck to vote for him, and that's his perrogative. Oddly enough, Sen. Braun ended up doing a better job of defending the Dean quote than Dean did against that arguement, but fine.
What is really pissing me off is hearing Edwards paint this like "Yankee with a Hee-Haw stereotype of the South." Maybe it's a stereotype, but it's not far off. I was watching NewsHour on the 3rd and they were doing a "Man on the Street" interview set at an Old Miss tailgate party about the mutual fund scandals. In the background of half the shots were confederate flags. Small flags, big, friggin' TENT sized flags with an integrated college band playing in front of them. I counted 45 confederate flag stickers on my way into work today.
Now, I personally find the stars and bars to be innocuous myself. However, I don't think it should be flying on the capital because it is obviously offensive to some people. It is not, however, some out dated cliche. I saw plenty of Dockers-and-Polo wearing blacks, whites, even a latino walking among them at Old Miss. I think making the point that we (as a Democratic Party) need to stop telling people to fuck off over race issues and work with the things that unite us, while opening a dialog about the things that don't sounds like an good policy.
Zell, on the otherhand, who writes this terribly ranty and myopically argued book about how the Democratic Party needs to re-engage more conservative southerners needs to get the hell off his high horse. Even in his twisted world of viewing Metro Atlanta, Miami and Nashville as all of the "South" --even though the entire state of Alabama is becoming a tragic joke-- and even more so his idealized view of "his" Georgia, the fact remains, the Confederate flag put the current governor in office.
There are plenty of people who grew up watching the Dukes of Hazard and see the Stars and Bars not as a symbol of segregation, but as a kitchy symbol of the south -- like the "Southern by the grace of God" sticker, or as a cheesy play at white-trash. I don't think alienating, however, the farmer and blue collar set even further with this crap serves the party of the nation at all. These are the people who benefit most from a Democratic administration.