Rep. Steve King Defends Joe Wilson And The Confederate Flag
Rep. Steve King Defends Joe Wilson And The Confederate Flag
Rep. Steve King (R-TXIA) isn’t just defending Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “you lie” outburst, he’s also standing behind Wilson’s decision to vote in favor of keeping the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol. In an interview this morning on Fox News, King praised Wilson’s moral character and brushed off concerns about the racist connotations that many believe the Confederate flag imparts:
“He is an officer and a gentleman and everyone who knows him knows that…being a son of the South puts you in a different position when it comes to the Confederate flag. It means something entirely different to the people who have ancestors who fought in the Civil War on the south side of the Mason-Dixon line. So I think Maureen Dowd is trying to whip this up and I also know she’s trying to put race into it. I didn’t know what race she was talking about when I first read her line on that.”
Watch it:
It seems that King has forgotten that for many Americans, the Confederate flag represents a lot more than the “War of Northern Agression.” In fact, the decision to fly the Confederate flag over South Carolina’s Capitol was also infused with meaning. While other Southern states took down their rebel flags, an all-white South Carolina legislature fought and won to keep theirs waving above their statehouse as the Civil Rights movement picked up steam in 1962. In 2000, Wilson was one of the seven Republicans who voted to keep it there. During the 2000 fight, one of his fellow legislators — state senator Arthur Ravenel — referred to the NAACP as “the National Association of Retarded People” and later apologized to “retarded people” for associating them with the NAACP. The Confederate flag has since been moved to the Capitol lawn.
Wilson has also been a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, identified as a “source of increasingly virulent pro-Confederate, radical right propaganda.” Maureen Dowd cynically described Wilson as being part of a “loco fringe” that “clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president.”
5 Responses to “Rep. Steve King Defends Joe Wilson And The Confederate Flag”
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The Dukes of Hazardous….
September 14th, 2009 at 8:23 pmSome call Joe Wilson a great statesman, and are even proud of his “Shout Out”, so lets see, he says, he was told by the Republican leadership to apologize (he did not realize the magnitude of his mistake), he then gives his weak “not for reals” apology, but then goes on to those “Commentator Talk Shows” and basically says he real was not wrong and plays the victim card and calls for people to send in for money to support him for re-election. Had he kept quiet after his apology, that might have been the end of it but now that people know he lied about the apology the story will continue, until he is out of a job and the funny thing is, he does not see it coming. This summer has been rough for his beleaguered political party. At least he did not end up on the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC). In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away the rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Out”. The bithers, the teabaggers, the screamers, and the deathers continued extreme minority presence will become tiresome to mainstream America, if it has not already done so.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:55 pmI highly commend both Representative Joe Wilson and Representative Steve King for their courage and willingness to speak the truth, even at the risk of criticism. Thank you, Gentlemen. You are both American heros.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:18 amNot that it will rehabilitate my home state of Texas in anyone’s mind, but the despicable Steve King is from Iowa, not “(R-TX)” as you state.
September 15th, 2009 at 12:18 pmJoe Wilson has no shame and now we know why he felt it was okay to behave like he did. The Sons of the Confederate must be so proud of him.
September 15th, 2009 at 4:33 pm