ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603040028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C.
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Here where the Civil War began, Pat Buchanan marches through South Carolina in a furious drive for votes in today's primary, painting himself as a true Confederate rebel with a cause.
The battle flag of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee? Keep it flying. The all-male Citadel military college? Keep women out. The nostalgic melody Dixie? Keep on whistling.
To those who see the Stars and Bars as a symbol of racism, Buchanan cries: ``That flag did not fly over slave quarters. It flew over battlefields. Never let 'em take that flag down! Never let 'em take it down!''
For several years, Buchanan has been senior adviser for Southern Partisan magazine, an unabashedly pro-Confederate, states' rights quarterly published in Columbia.
According to articles in the magazine, slavery met the standards of Christian ethics, President Clinton used Hitlerian tactics to squelch opposition, and Abraham Lincoln was ``the founder of unlimited government'' and ``a consummate conniver, manipulator and liar.''
In the world of Southern Partisan, which claims 20,000 readers, ``our nation's capital'' is Richmond, Va., secession was justified, and the CSA (Confederate States of America) flag remains a stirring emblem of courage, honor and glory.
The journal carries ads for ``Yankee Go Home'' bumper stickers and CSA T-shirts (``If At First You Don't Secede'').
When a Republican state legislator voted to haul down the Stars and Bars from the State House, calling it ``a divisive symbol of ... slavery,'' the magazine gave him its Scalawag Award. (Scalawags, a Southern Partisan article says, are ``Southerners who sucked up to the enemy for profit.'')
The magazine also gave the award to the modern Ku Klux Klan, not so much for its white supremacist notions as for its ``shameless mockery of the Confederate cause'' and ``misappropriation of sacred Southern symbols.''
Buchanan is ``a big fan of our magazine,'' said Oran P. Smith, editor of Southern Partisan. ``He has the same ideas about Southern heritage that we do.''
Has Buchanan ever expressed disagreement with anything published in Southern Partisan?
``No, he sure hasn't,'' Smith replied. Buchanan and Southern Partisan, he said, are ``a perfect fit.''
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB