It's hilarious to see Rudy Guiliani embodying so many of us with such eloquence. I'm glad anyone can just take it upon themselves to speak for blacks, women, and other people who might be referred to as "nappy-headed hoes."

p.s. - there's an ad right next to your blog sponsored by the Rudy Guiliani Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Ugh - those ads aren't chosen by TDG - probably turned up b/c of all the mentions of "Rudy Giuliani" at this site.

Pretty funny, tho.

Rudy doesn't care for black folks, period. He has demonstrated that again and again. In fact, just this week, while campaigning in Montgomery, Alabama, he said that he would leave it to the people of Alabama to decide whether to fly the Confederate flag over the state capitol.

OK, let me give you a little history here. The Confederate flag issue was big in South Carolina. That flag had been flying from the top of the state capitol building in Columbia since the early 1960s. No, not since the Civil War, not the 1860s, mind you, but since the early 1960s. It was basically a statement of defiance against the civil rights movement.

During the late 1990s the South Carolina legislature debated for months trying to resolve this issue. Many wanted to take it down, but many Republicans (who control both houses) wanted to keep it up. They couldn't get any other business done. Finally a compromise was reached that no one really liked. The flag no longer flys atop the building, but it does fly from the statehouse grounds in a very prominent position.

The Confederate flag issue was also debated in Georgia and Mississippi. In both states the Stars & Stripes is a prominent part of their state flags. Then Governor Roy Barnes of Georgia had an interesting compromise: to continue to include the Confederate flag but to also include 5 other flags that had once flown over Georgia. In Mississippi, they had a referendum. Unfortunately the proposed new flag was so ugly that the public voted to keep the old flag.

But in Alabama, it's not an issue. The Confederate flag hasn't been flown at the Capitol since God knows when. And there are no plans to do so. So why would Giuliani bring it up? Ignorance? Does he think that all Southern states are just alike? Or does he just want to stir up trouble? Shall we declare him a Yankee instigator?

Having grown up in the rural South I've seen the Confederate flag displayed many times - on license plates, t-shirts, etc. About 5 years ago my cousin's wife dared to write a letter to the editor in the town paper to criticize the sale of Confederate paraphernalia at a street fair - and spurred a slew of letters calling her all kinds of names.

And of course they always claim that it's not racist and instead about pride in their heritage. But I know that's a lot of bull. At my old high school (with a black population of about 30%) some students dared to challenge school policy against wearing shirts displaying the Confederate symbol. An assistant principal related how she confronted one of the offenders and was given the usual line about his heritage. So she questioned him to see what he knew. "What was Gettysburg all about?" Never heard of it. And then she asked him the most obvious: who was Robert E. Lee? He had no idea. It's not about heritage because a lot of them don't even know it. It's all about sticking it to the black community, but pretending that they're not. It's about being a coward.

The next time Giuliani wants to mix it up with redneck racist scum, he might want to mention how he was once married to his second cousin. I'm sure they'll be very impressed.