Flags and Freedom

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The most illuminating votes in the Senate this week on the flag-burning issue were those of Senators McConnell, McCain, and Feingold. Mr. McConnell, who represents Kentucky, was one of only three Republicans to vote against a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. Mr. Feingold, who represents Wisconsin, was the only Democrat to vote against both the constitutional amendment and against a weaker law that would have banned flag burning intended to incite violence or intimidate. Mr. McCain, a Republican of Arizona, voted for the constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, and, like most of the amendment’s backers, against the weaker law.

What makes this interesting is that the three men were key players in the last big First Amendment battle in the Senate – the debate over the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Mr. McConnell then was a fierce advocate of freedom of campaign speech. In opposing both the constitutional amendment and the restrictions on campaign speech advanced by Senators McCain and Feingold, Mr. McConnell has been a consistent friend of the First Amendment. By supporting the constitutional amendment and supporting the campaign speech restrictions, Mr. McCain has been a consistent foe of freedom of speech. Mr. Feingold, by opposing the constitutional amendment and the law and supporting campaign speech restrictions, makes himself inconsistent – he supports free speech for flag-burners, but not for those who want to run television commercials during political campaigns.

We recognize that the flag debate involves more than simply free speech, as, for that matter, does the fight over campaign speech. The America-haters who burn flags goad Congress into responding, as do those politicians, like President Clinton, who rented the Lincoln Bedroom to shady donors to raise campaign cash. But a test of a politician is to adhere to principles of freedom and the Bill of Rights in the face of temptations to abandon them, for whatever reason. It’s a test that this week, Senator McConnell came closest to passing.


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