Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 25, 1990                   TAG: 9006260115
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE?

Is praise worth lavishing for the act merely of declining to amend the greatest codification of freedom ever, the fragile bedrock of America's grandeur?

Apparently so. Only a minority in the House of Representatives voted against a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit flag-burning while tampering with the First Amendment, the protector of free expression for 200 years.

Fortunately, the minority was enough. The tally of 254-177, in favor of the amendment, fell 34 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution.

If the Bill of Rights remains intact, Virginia's delegation emerges something less than a profile in courage. Only Rep. Rick Boucher of Abingdon voted against the amendment. His constituents can hail him proudly.

Boucher did co-sponsor a bill - not a constitutional amendment - that would impose a fine if a flag is burned on federal property or in a manner that incites people to riot. Such legislation might have afforded a fig leaf for those exposed by their votes against the amendment. It would be preferable, in any case, to altering the Constitution.

All other nine Virginia congressmen voted for the amendment, a stain on their record. And among them was, sad to say, Rep. Jim Olin of Roanoke.

One is tempted to exclude Olin from the company of those who endorsed the amendment simply for political gain. Olin's House seat seems secure enough. Perhaps he should be given the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a mistake in judgment.

If so, it was a bad one. Olin's vote put him on the same side as President Bush, who for his own and his party's purposes has ignobly manipulated Americans' honest emotions and deep love of country and flag.

Bush's exploitation of the flag issue partakes of the politics of his 1988 campaign, in which Willie Horton, the Pledge of Allegiance, flag-factory visits and ACLU membership became television sound-bites - thus central campaign themes.

That the president would alter the First Amendment to score partisan political points is awful - but, of course, he isn't alone on the flag-desecration bandwagon. The amendment proposal did win a majority of House votes. "When I look around the politicians today, I see more people who remind me of Daffy Duck than Thomas Jefferson," said one disgusted representative.

The quacking isn't over. Last week's votes will be recalled again and again next fall in political ads. Campaign consultants will again bathe the public in jingoism to elect their candidates. And this points perhaps to the most disturbing aspect of this affair: Demagoguery sometimes works.

The sentiments that the politicians are exploiting are grand. Old Glory stands not only for America, but for its values and heritage and purpose and strength which, to many people, with good cause, seem threatened nowadays. Flag-burning is despicable because it symbolizes the many affronts this nation's goodness has had to endure.

But the answer isn't a constitutional amendment. As House Speaker Tom Foley observed, every country has a flag; only America has the Bill of Rights. Last week's vote in the House gave proof that our flag is still there.