our years ago David Beasley was governor of South Carolina. Today he works as a business consultant for a Boston law firm. His political fate was pretty much sealed after he became the first governor to call for moving the Confederate battle flag from atop his statehouse dome.
His effort to move the flag to a nearby Civil War monument alienated thousands of voters who belong to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other Southern heritage groups. But Beasley - a Republican - was also abandoned by some of the same constituencies now insisting it is so important to lower the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
''Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, played politics with the issue,'' says Beasley of his own Confederate flag experience in 1996 and 1997.
They are still playing politics with it.
The Confederate flag is a symbol of war, slavery, and racism. As such it is morally repugnant and should fly over no statehouse in this country. But don't be fooled into thinking its emergence as an issue now has anything to do with a serious discussion of race relations in America. It is more symbolic of the shallowness of American politics, especially American presidential politics, than it is of any true moral outrage about the racial divide in the United States.
Ethanol in Iowa, taxes in New Hampshire, the Confederate flag in South Carolina. It is all so very predictable. Sometime quite soon, the presidential campaign caravan will move into New York. We'll know it because the candidates will be talking about Israel in an effort to push the levers for the Jewish vote.
That's why it's worth stepping back from today's headlines about the controversy in South Carolina to reflect on what happened in 1996, when Beasley suggested taking down the Confederate flag.
Some degree of political calculation inspired him then; some, no doubt, inspires him now. Beasley supports George W. Bush, who is under attack, along with John McCain for refusing to say the Confederate flag should come down.
Beasley's fellow Republicans blocked him in the state Legislature. But he contends that Democrats stranded him as well because it didn't suit their purposes to offer him political support at that time.
Of Vice President Gore, who says the flag should come down as he seeks the Democratic party nomination for president, Beasley says: ''It upsets me when I see Al Gore out there talking about this issue.... In 1996 and 1997, when I first proposed this, Al Gore did not make one single phone call to me. Neither did one Democrat, black or white.''
Adds Beasley: ''Now Mr. Gore is making this an issue, saying Mr. Bush should speak out. If anyone has a right to determine who should speak out, it's me. I'm the one who paid the ultimate political price. Mr. Gore lifted not one single finger when it was the issue of the day. He was AWOL. He did nothing.''
And as for the NAACP, which is also making this an issue in 2000, Beasley says: ''Their hands are not clean, their hearts are not pure. In 1996 and 1997, the NAACP did not get behind our efforts because of pure, old, rotten politics.''
Pure, old, rotten politics. That means if you are a Democrat you don't speak up if it helps a Republican and vice versa. It also means you pretend you are running a positive campaign when behind the scenes, you are up to the same old tricks and double talk.
Bush calls McCain ''my good friend'' and slops all over him for the cameras. But watch the news and read the newspapers and you know the Texas governor has primed his organization to drop dimes about McCain's temper, sanity, and fund-raising. McCain, meanwhile, campaigns on the Straight Talk Express. But obviously his advisers put an end to straight talk in South Carolina, after it caused problems with flag supporters.
Today, Gore speaks with passion about the Confederate flag and what it symbolizes. If his passion were real, he could have exercised his moral authority three years ago as vice president and not let Beasley's party affiliation temper his alleged fervor. At the same time, Gore's Democratic opponent, former senator Bill Bradley, tries to convince us he wants a thoughtful dialogue on race - then does his best to blame Gore for the racist Willie Horton ad that so damaged Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Beasley is not pure, either. He still insists South Carolina should take down the Confederate flag, but he also insists that Bush is right to stay out of the fray. ''If it had been resolved when I proposed it, South Carolina would not be where it is today, on display for the entire world in a very ugly way,'' says Beasley.
Resolving it would take politicians ruled by their hearts, not by their opinion polls. They would actually have to believe in something other than themselves.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.
