What, No Rebel Yell From The Left?

Michael Stickings at The Moderate Voice, tagging his comments history and while not condemning Poe, certainly suggesting we should ignore the context of it when looking back to derive some PC code for modern speech: It was insensitive and perhaps stupid of Poe to quote Forrest.

Excerpted:

This is by no means my first visit to this spot.

The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years.

And there were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans.

And so I am here, with you today, to remember. And to honor an army that rose like a sudden wind out of the little towns and scattered farms of a yet unconquered wilderness. That drew 750,000 soldiers from a population base of only five million-less than the current population of Virginia alone. That fought with squirrel rifles and cold steel against a much larger and more modern force.

I am not here to apologize for why they fought, although modern historians might contemplate that there truly were different perceptions in the North and South about those reasons, ...

Love of the Union was palpably stronger in the South than in the North before the war -- just as overt patriotism is today -- .... Nor had Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in Kentucky and Missouri when those border states did not secede. Perhaps all of us might reread the writings of Alexander Stephens, a brilliant attorney who opposed secession but then became Vice President of the Confederacy, making a convincing legal argument that the constitutional compact was terminable. And who wryly commented at the outset of the war that "the North today presents the spectacle of a free people having gone to war to make freemen of slaves, while all they have as yet attained is to make slaves of themselves."

And so those of us who carry in our veins the living legacy of those times have also inherited a special burden. These men, like all soldiers, made painful choices and often paid for their loyalty with their lives. It is up to us to ensure that this ever-changing nation remembers the complexity of the issues they faced, and the incredible conditions under which they performed their duty, as they understood it.

But more than anything else, I am compelled today to remember a number of ancestors who lie in graves far away from Arlington. Two died fighting for the Confederacy -- one in Virginia and the other in a prisoner camp in Illinois, after having been captured in Tennessee. Another served three years in the Virginia cavalry and survived, naming the next child to spring from his loins Robert E. Lee Webb, a name that my grandfather also held and which has passed along in bits and pieces through many others, such as my cousin, Roger Lee Webb, present today, and my son, James Robert, also present. And another, who fought for the Arkansas infantry and then the Tennessee Cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest.

We, the progeny who live in that future, were among the intended beneficiaries of those frightful decisions made so long ago. As such, we are also the caretakers of the memory, and the reputation, of those who performed their duty -- as they understood it -- under circumstances too difficult for us ever to fully comprehend.

James Webb was an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration.

Comments

[nova]

This will end up making some waves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V0cgHPlIjg

[southdakotaboy]

We must all remember that people on the left get a pass on racist remarks because they are on the left. You know like a certain Grand Klegal in the Senate who gets to use the "N" word when ever he wants.
Once again I say to heck with them let them charge racism all they want we no longer accept that charge just give them a great big "Whatever, speak to the hand!"

[Hard Right]

The quote was neither racist or insensitive. What the Dems are doing is pathetic. If they think anyone other than their braindead drones are with them on protesting this "racist" quote, than they are off their meds and on crack.

[Phoenix]

This is all becoming too petty for words.

I'm late for Brit. I wonder if his gang will discuss this 'important' issue.

[SDN]

Hey, where are all our favorite liberal trolls? Kinda empty... Oh yeah, can't bash Bush for this one.