May 06, 2009 NOTE: PLEASE say if you DON'T want your name and/or email address published when sending VDARE email. A Tennessee Reader Recalls Jack Kemp’s Hostility (While Running For President!) To Confederate Flag
From:
Bob Kudzu (e-mail
him)
Re: Peter Brimelow’s Column:
In
Memoriam: Jack Kemp—His Moment Came And Went. What
About America’s?
A successful conservative activist I know, I’ll call
him Bill Smith, recounted a revealing story about
the late
Congressman Jack Kemp.
Back in the late 1980s when
Kemp was preparing his run for the
Presidency,
it fell to Smith to pick him up at the airport to
attend an annual political dinner in our small
Tennessee city.
Smith is smart, decent and amiable. During their
drive to the hotel where the dinner was held, they
chatted about football until they passed a small
business that flew a
Confederate flag.
Kemp became agitated. He said that the flag
represented pure hatred. He went on, his voice
rising, and expressed amazement that anybody would
display “that thing.” You might say he was
pitching a fit.
Abruptly, Smith pulled into the nearest parking lot,
killed the engine, and forcefully reminded a
startled Kemp where he was, and why he was there (to
curry votes), and that not everybody in this
particular
Tennessee town cared to hear his
misbegotten opinions on Confederate symbols.
In fact, Smith continued, he had quite a few
Confederate ancestors who fought in the
War Between the States, and he was damned proud
of each and every one of them.
Smith concluded by suggesting that Kemp best not act
like a complete jackass while in our city.
Kemp held his tongue the rest of the way. He even
managed to keep his thoughts about the
Confederate flag to himself during his
after-dinner speech.
But it did him no good. Smith, an unassuming but
influential man, saw to it that word spread about
the way Kemp had shot his mouth off.
That, as they say, was that. Kemp was through in
these parts. |
