FLAG ANTICS FROM THE D'SOUZITES AGAINST DEAN

Hesiod links to this story:

HANOVER, N.H. --
A group of students who attended Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's appearance at Dartmouth College on Thursday unveiled Confederate flags as he was introduced.

The group of about nine students, whom fellow students and Dean campaign staffers identified as conservative activists, did not otherwise disrupt the former Vermont governor's speech about paying for higher education. And Dean did not acknowledge them or refer to controversy surrounding his recent remark that he wanted to attract voters with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.

The students sat with the flags draped across their shoulders throughout Dean's appearance.

(...)

The demonstrators refused to say whether they were affiliated with any college organizations, even though one of their names appeared in the conservative publication Dartmouth Review as a contributor.

Student Xi Huang said he and his fellow demonstrators wanted to make a statement about what they felt was Dean's inappropriate use of the Confederate flag image.

"He said that for six months, and just recently gave an apology," said Huang, 19, of Boston. "We felt his apology was insufficient."

Dean's appearance also was marked by posters around the Dartmouth campus bearing the Confederate flag image. The posters were identical to ones Dean's campaign had printed, except that they were against a backdrop of the Confederate flag and they said "sponsored by young Democrats."

The president of Young Democrats at Dartmouth, Paul Heintz of Cambridge, Mass., said his group had nothing to do with the posters.

"The idea that we would have any part in using that symbol in any sort of way is preposterous," he said.

Heintz, who said he supports Dean, doubted that the incident was organized by any of the other Democratic campaigns. "I would say it has a lot more to do with a very small number of students who are socially conservative," Heintz said.

Hesiod wonders what sort of reaction a stunt like this would have received had it been orchestrated at a Bush appearance. Of course, Bush is on record as saying the Confederate flag is a symbol of "heritage". Here's a picture of the flyers the conservatives made.

But of course, there's one question that needs to be asked: Gee whiz, those young conservatives seem to be really savvy about acquiring Confederate flags, tell me, why is that?