President Obama, in one of the better judgment calls of his Administration, ignored this:
“Last week, a group of about 60 professors petitioned the White House, asking the first black U.S. president to break tradition and not memorialize military members from the Confederacy, the group of Southern states that supported slavery.” (AP)
Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, and kept the tradition of sending a wreath to the Confederate Memorial there, as is usually done at the same time. He also sent one to the African American Civil War Memorial, which hadn’t been included before.
I’m one who thinks that Lee-Jackson Day is an anachronism. With all the great Virginians to honor, why those two? No James Madison, no Patrick Henry, no Richard Henry Lee, but Lee and Jackson?
But Obama is right not to make Memorial Day the platform for a conversation about slavery. Kudos, Chief.
