Vice President Dick Cheney spent about eight hours hunting Monday at a secluded Hudson Valley gun club where well-heeled enthusiasts shoot ducks and pheasants. Although a heavy police presence kept the media and curious local residents at a distance, Cheney’s visit did stir up a bit of controversy when a New York Daily News photographer snapped a picture of a small Confederate flag hanging inside a garage on the hunt club property.

The photo was shown to New York City civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton, who issued a statement demanding that the vice president “leave immediately, denounce the club and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate and murder to black people.” (AP)

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As a native Yankee, as well as a citizen abhorred by slavery, I by no means would want anything to do with the confederate flag. Still, to Cheney’s benefit, I must say this story is quite silly for 2 reasons:

1) The flag is said to be “small” and “hanging inside a garage”. If it were any more innocuous, it would have been on someone bumper…
2) To say the confederate flag “represents lynching, hate and murder to black people” is definitely an overstatement. This is due to the fact that the civil war, although confused at times, was not just about nor mainly about slavery. Obviously it was a factor, but to say the civil war war and confederate flag were about slavery is like saying McDonalds is about salads (it is a factor, but not the main one). Once again, I do NOT condone what was done in our past, nor do I support the use of confederate flags, as it symbolizes a bleak period in our history, but lets at least be logical and honest with ourselves about the seriousness of this matter…

Rev. Sharpton’s comments, as usual, were out-of-place and extreme. How can any good politician (this is not referring to Cheney) gain momentum if they’re continually bogged down with such ridiculous stories? Rather then paying attention to this, we need to keep in mind the important issues of the day and not get distracted. There are PLENTY of other issues you can talk about in regards to Vice President Cheney, why feel the need to make fake ones up? It only distracts the public from reality and leads to more political inaction…