“Confederate History Month.” That title should be sufficient to have any semi-conscious American’s ethics alarms ringing, like “Dina Lohan, Mother of the Year.” That it didn’t for Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, at least until furious critics rang it for him, tells us something disturbing about the Republican’s ethical blind spots, and perhaps other things as well. Perhaps we can truly get through to Bob with a song…sung to the tune of that traditional Virginia favorite, Dixie. All together, now: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
It’s a big step back when Old Virginia
Celebrates the bigot in ya
Saying, “Hey!”
“Wearing Grey
In the day
Was OK!”
Ethics Alarms 
I supported his rival. =\
The Republicans in my state are giving us a bad name, between Kuccinelli’s silliness and McDonnell reinforcing many of the worst stereotypes about Virginians, and Southerners in general (such as “People from the South are obsessed with the Confederacy”).
I still can’t get over that boneheaded master’s thesis he wrote for Regent. And now this.
I draw a hard line around academic papers of any kind, be it Hillary Clinton’s thesis, Michelle Obama’s, or McDonnell’s. It’s impossible to ever know whether these things are provocative, written for effect, expressions of theories later discarded, or something else. “Confederate History Month” is plenty boneheaded enough.
I thought the WaPo editorial was nicely balanced, and pretty much right on the money.
History has been written on the Civil War, and McDonnell was trying, in a small way, to rewrite the narrative more to his liking. That’s bad politics, bad judgment, and … well, just plain bad.
I have to own up to my team’s ethical failures on the blog anytime I discuss NCAA compliance. Why? Because failure to do so implicitly excuses them. The same is true of McDonnell’s declaration, which amounted to an implicit excusal of slavery. That’s always wrong.
What bothers me—and if I weren’t constrained by verse, I would have articulated it better—is how in this day and age McDonnell, or anyone not wearing a hood, couldn’t see immediately that to bring back a discarded tradition would be automatically seen as a minimization of slavery.
I live in Alexandria, VA. I see the statute of the Confederate soldier in the center of King Street as salute to the brave men, who really had no political motivation other than fighting for their state, who I visualize marching into Union artillery and rifle fire every time I visit Gettysburg. But no African American has to feel that way, just as I can sneer at statues of Woodrow Wilson. A state celebration forces every citizen to be apart of an official honor, and I don’t see how any black American can separate the personal courage from the inhumanity, intellectually or philosophically.
Aside from his foolish idealism, what’s wrong with Woodrow Wilson?
He was probably our most overtly racist president in the 20th Century, actively re-energized Jim Crow, encouraged the KKK, and undid much the civil rights progress that had been made since the Civil War.
Wow. Well, it’s surprising how much gets glossed over.
I wanted to post this from an article and see where it leads:
“Among the 37 black Republicans running for U.S. House and Senate seats in November is Charles Lollar of Maryland’s 5th District.
A tea party supporter running against House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Lollar says he’s finding support in unexpected places.
The 38-year-old U.S. Marine Corps reservist recently walked into a bar in southern Maryland decorated with a Confederate flag. It gave his wife Rosha pause.
“I said, ‘You know what, honey? Many, many of our Southern citizens came together under that flag for the purpose of keeping their family and their state together,'” Lollar recalled. “The flag is not what you’re to fear. It’s the stupidity behind the flag that is a problem. I don’t think we’ll find that in here. Let’s go ahead in.”
Once inside, they were treated to a pig roast, a motorcycle rally — and presented with $5,000 in contributions for his campaign.”
I saw that. Classic, and totally apropos.
Sometimes, when you tear through the assumptions about what you see on the surface, you find something warm and welcoming.