Robert E. Lee
On Sunday's Up with David Gura show on MSNBC, during a panel discussion lambasting White House officials like Kellyanne Conway for pushing "lies" and "propaganda" in their press appearances, the show made an on-screen misspelling that seems unlikely to have been an innocent typo as the chyron misquoted Conway as saying President Donald Trump "commended" neo-Nazis.
As MSNBC host Al Sharpton appeared as a guest on MSNBC Live with Alex Witt on Saturday afternoon to discuss President Donald Trump's recent defense of his Charlottesville comments from 2017, Sharpton and fill-in host Phillip Mena both hinted that President Trump only recently made up the issue of demonstrators having legitimate concerns about statues of General Robert E. Lee even though video proves that the President previously discussed the issue of General Lee and other historical statues being targeted for removal.
Late in the going on Thursday’s CNN Tonight, two eyebrow-raising claims arose when host Don Lemon compared Robert E. Lee statues to having schools named after Osama Bin Laden while political commentator Keith Boykin defended the Missouri liberal who called for President Trump’s assassination.
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.
The day after we celebrated the national holiday of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Associated Press published a story seemingly meant to stir race hatred by bringing up the fact that in the state of Arkansas the memorial recognition of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's birthday is on the same day as that of King's observance there.