The Southern Cross

It's said that Social Security is the third rail of American politics, but an honest look would turn up something just as deadly. Though it lacks New Deal stature, nothing is more hazardous to a political career than the Confederate flag. Like Sherman's march, it lays waste to everything in its path.

In recent years alone the flag has ruined governors from both parties (the Democrat Roy Barnes, of Georgia, and the Republican David Beasley, of South Carolina); debased the honorable John McCain, who first dodged it and then awkwardly renounced it; and stalled Howard Dean's momentum when no one and nothing else could. Yet the Confederate flag lacks Social Security's reputation as an issue not to be tampered with—and is all the more lethal because of that. Politically, it is truly the Lost Cause. The latest chapter in this saga will unfold this month, when Georgia holds a referendum ...