Sarah, is slavery wrong?
Sarah Sanders wants us to stop saying slavery was wrong.
During a White House news briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Chief of Staff John Kelly’s praise of Robert E. Lee and remarks about how “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War,” not the Confederacy’s refusal to abolish slavery.
“Look, all of our leaders have flaws — Washington, Jefferson, JFK, Roosevelt, Kennedy — that doesn’t diminish their contributions to our country, and it certainly can’t erase them from our history,” she said. “And General Kelly was simply making the point that just because history isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not our history.”
No, he was not. He said what he said and not some other thing. He did not say “Just because history isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not our history.”
“And to try to create something and push a narrative that simple doesn’t exist is just frankly outrageous and absurd,” Sanders continued. “I think the fact that we keep trying to drive, the media continues to want to make this and push that this is some sort of a racially charged and divided White House — frankly the only people I see stoking political racism right now are the people in the groups that are running ads like the one you saw take place in Virginia earlier this week. That’s the type of thing that I think really is a problem, and I think it is absurd and disgraceful to keep trying to make comments and take them out of context and mean something they simply don’t.”
Well…she’s not the smartest person in the world. Maybe she really doesn’t grasp that saying the confederacy was acting in good faith and according to its conscience is a gross sanitization of why the South seceded. Maybe she really doesn’t, but then she shouldn’t be in that job.
The latest Civil War-related controversy to envelope the White House was not, however, a media invention. Kelly went out of his way to praise Lee and the Confederacy during an interview on the debut edition of Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show Monday night. Kelly was responding to a question about the removal of Confederate plaques.
Lee “was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days,” Kelly said. “But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”
At no point did Kelly mention the role that the South’s determination to preserve the institution of slavery play in sparking the Civil War. Nor did Sanders mention it on Tuesday. As she left the podium, a reporter repeatedly tried to ask her, “Does this administration believe slavery was wrong?” Sanders didn’t answer.
The reporter in question is April Ryan, of “are they friends of yours?” fame. She’s tweeting about it now…saying she’s still waiting for an answer.
Of course Sanders didn’t reply – a yes would both be a lie, and a betrayal of their base, and a no would be too obvious. Your current administration prefers to communicate in dog whistles.
“The lack of an ability to compromise….”
What possible compromise could there have been, apart from allowing the Confederate states to secede?
Oh, I’m sure that the treasonous South were ready to compromise over all sorts of things.
Like allowing that they wouldn’t spread slavery into non-slave-owning states where Black people could be free, right?
Oops. No, I’m wrong.
Funny how when right-wingers say “wouldn’t compromise”, it’s usually them that won’t compromise, so they basically mean “won’t let me have my own way completely no matter how much I scream and shout”.
Compromise to prevent the Civil War = allow the South to continue enslaving people of color and treating them with as much brutality as they please
Compromise on the tax code = remove all taxes from the wealthy, and try to make up the shortfall by sticking it to the poor through value added and sales taxes
Compromise on Obama care = take health care away from anyone not sensible enough to be born rich enough to afford health care
Compromise on abortion = make abortion totally illegal, even for those who have been raped or who will die if they carry a pregnancy to term because, well, why should we pay for them to manage their sluthood? (Yes, I heard that exact phrase – manage their sluthood – from a young man in my town who is a libertarian, an atheist, and an asshole).
So, yes, by their definitions of compromise, the left has been rather unwilling to compromise…at least most of the time. That last one gets way too many left liberals on board (we are currently having a challenger to our governor in the next election who is running as a Democrat; he says he is really a liberal, but cannot be a Democrat because they are not pro-life enough).
Also, Lee wasn’t one of our leaders… he was one of the leaders of an enemy “nation”.
Tricksy liberals with their gotcha questions. It’s so unfair to ask if slavery is wrong.
“And to try to create something and push a narrative that simple doesn’t exist is just frankly outrageous and absurd,” Sanders continued.
Oooh, that’s rich, coming from a Trump official. This entire administration has been about “pushing narratives that don’t exist.” Outrageous and absurd? Agreed.