Opinion: Mr. Giuliani Goes South

Americans are weary enough of presidential candidates who blurt out one of those intellectually dishonest sound bites known as “the pander” when they are caught in the last moments of a do-or-die race. But what are they to make of a candidate who goes straight to the pandering, with comments that are offensive to millions of people?

That’s what we found ourselves asking when Rudolph Giuliani told reporters in Alabama that it should be up to the state to decide whether to fly the Confederate battle flag over its Capitol. Never mind that the flag has not flown there for nearly 15 years. Never mind that nobody is pushing to return it. Never mind that lawsuits have been decided on this issue and that millions of Americans find the standard to be a symbol of slavery and repression.

Explaining his let-them-fly-flags philosophy, he declaimed that one of the “great beauties” of American government is that “we can make different decisions in different parts of the country.”

He added: “We have different sensitivities.”

Mr. Giuliani cannot truly believe the issues surrounding the Confederate flag are just a matter of local taste. The Civil War, the civil rights movement and the Supreme Court answered that question. Even the Southern states have largely moved on.

If he missed all of that, surely he noticed how Senator John McCain humiliated himself in 2000 over the flag in a vain attempt to win the primary in South Carolina. There is no excusing that pandering, but at least the flag was an issue that year in that state. In 2007, Mr. Giuliani simply looks as if he wants to convince voters that no matter what his beliefs are, they should vote for him anyway because he’s prepared to put them aside.

He said he believes in the right to own guns, but he would let the states decide how to regulate them. The other day he said he was for abortion rights and preened about his political courage. Then he refused to say whether states should spend public money on abortions or require a woman to view an ultrasound picture of her fetus before an abortion.

Mr. Giuliani ought to stop waving in the wind, because that would be the right thing to do. It is also not working. Southern political strategists said he’s too moderate on abortion and pronounced him dead in their states. In Alabama, the local press mocked him for failing to recognize an actual Confederate battle flag on a flagpole. Americans know a pander when they see one.