Governor McDonnell Can't Escape Virginia's Past

My latest column for The Week examines the controversy over Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's proclamation declaring April as "Confederate History Month".

My latest column for The Week examines the controversy over Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's proclamation declaring April as "Confederate History Month".

[McDonnell] released what he apparently hoped would be a bland, inoffensive statement about the importance of remembering the past.

But the Civil War is a subject about which it is impossible to be bland, and in urging Virginians to remember, the proclamation engaged in some creative forgetting. It claimed that Confederate soldiers “fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth.” None of those things was endangered in 1861. What was endangered was slavery – and slavery goes entirely unmentioned in McDonnell’s proclamation.

For a governor who was trying to make an embarrassing and divisive issue go away, this was an epic fail. For a politician who is said to aspire to national office, it is a serious misstep.

Click here to read the rest.