There is nothing more unstoppable and absurd than a media frenzy about something truly unimportant.  Hot on the trail of George Allen’s macaca remark, liberal bloggers and the MSM have “discovered” George Allen’s cameo in Gods and Generals (an excellent film, perhaps the best yet made about the War, that captures the time and the mentality of the people as well as the Shaara novel on which it was based).  He is seen singing The Bonnie Blue Flag along with the other Confederate officers.  As others have pointed out, it is unusual that Allen the Californian took an interest in the Confederacy after moving to Virginia, but I have yet to see anyone explain why his attempts–forced and artificial as they may be–to take an interest in the history and heritage of his adopted state are in themselves objectionable or scandalous.  If anything, as a transplant and a Yankee he should make some effort to acquaint himself with the history of the state he claims to represent. 

What Does It Mean?  Allen Doesn’t Have A Clue

Of course, I know why we are supposed to believe this to be the case, but what is actually more striking about Allen’s interest in the Confederacy is the way in which the constitutional and political principles that motivated secession are not to be found anywhere in Mr. Allen’s real-life worldview.  This makes his affection for the Confederacy rather less compelling, and makes it seem to be something more like a pose than a serious attachment. 

If there is anything that is really offensive about Allen’s cameo, it is that he sings The Bonnie Blue Flag in the movie with no appreciation in real life for what it means, and he works in the Senate without any sense of what the principles that inspired the Confederacy would mean for how he should view the autocratic tendencies of Mr. Bush or the imperial war that he unflaggingly supports.  The scandal is not that he sings a Confederate song or that he has a battle flag–in this he is no more scandalous, indeed less so than people who sing the blasphemous Battle Hymn of the Republic–but that these are mere trinkets with no more importance for his own politics than some collectible antiques.  Whatever else you might say about him, Jim Webb, who had ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, understands more about the constitutional principles and the duty of the men represented in Gods and Generals than George Allen ever will.  I’d like to think that is one reason why Mr. Webb opposes the dreadful war in Iraq, and I would also like to think that Mr. Allen’s incomprehension of the real meaning of The Bonnie Blue Flag is one reason why he continues to support it.