Really, Mr Webb. Do not run for President - especially not as a Democrat. It won't go well if you do.

This is an emotional time and we all need to think through these issues with a care that recognizes the need for change but also respects the complicated history of the Civil War. The Confederate Battle Flag has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades. It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us.

It's far too late to stop the Confederate Battle Flag from being used to divide the country, since the goal of the Confederacy was to literally divide the country. They seceded, remember? Formed an army, waved that flag around? Hundreds of thousands died as a result?

And as for "racist purposes"? Again, too late! It's been a symbol of racism from its inception. The Confederacy was created to preserve slavery. That's no northerner's revisionist history, either. To know the Confederacy's intentions, we need only read the declarations of secession that the Confederate states issued.