Talk about rain on parades...

NASCAR has banned the General Lee from a lap in the Sprint Cup parade.

A sad day in The South's history:



Ben Jones, who played mechanic "Cooter" Davenport and is a former Georgia congressman, blasted NASCAR's decision in a statement.
 
Said Jones: "At a time when tens of millions of Americans are honoring their Union and Confederate ancestors during this Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, NASCAR has chosen to dishonor those Southerners who fought and died in that terrible conflict by caving to political correctness and the uninformed concerns of corporate sponsors.
 
"This action by NASCAR is a provocative and unnecessary over-reaction to a problem that doesn't exist. It is a disgraceful and gratuitous insult to a lot of very decent people. It is prejudicial toward those good-hearted folks who, like Uncle Jesse Duke, are in fact 'never meanin' no harm'."
 
Reached Friday at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, Watson said the car only has the flag on it because that's the way it looked on the show.
 
"Obviously, I don't stand for the Confederate flag," Watson said. "The Confederate flag was not used (in the show) for what people see it as today, so that's sad. But NASCAR was built on moonshining, so the show was built on moonshining. I thought it was fun. I didn't buy the car to get publicity; I bought it because I love it."

Whole thing here.