I Do Not Believe That Word Means What You Think It Means

In this case, Virgina's Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has an issue with the word "significant" as he doubles down on last night's idiocy.

Last week, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) issued a proclamation quietly declaring April 2010 Confederate History Month, saying it was important for Virginians to “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present.”


Notably absent from McDonnell’s proclamation was any mention of slavery. Yesterday, McDonnell explained that it wasn’t “significant” enough to merit a mention:

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.“

Slavery?  Not significant enough in Virginia's history to be mentioned.  The Confederacy?  Totally significant!

Also, the word I'm looking for to describe McDonnell is "asshole."   Dave Brockington and the LGM crew educate McDonnell.

The fact that McDonnell is recognizing — and I think pretty clearly celebrating — the Lost Cause is at some level no better or worse than what Georgia or Mississippi does each year.  At the same time, however, Virginia’s importance to the entire history of the Confederacy means that, for McDonnell, hailing the state’s role in the Confederacy means hailing the state’s role in assuring that the entire nation suffered through a war that killed well over 600,000 people and took four years to conclude.  The state was, of course, critical to the lunatic aspirations of the Deep South planter class.  Its manpower, industrial wealth and agricultural resources (to say nothing of its geographic value, perched across the Potomac from the Great Bearded Satan) were essential to the mission of preserving the institution of slavery against the imaginary assaults being made against it by the miscegenationists in the Republican party.  Lacking Virginia, the Confederacy could easily have been choked to death by a prolonged naval blockade; of course, lacking Virginia on the Confederate side, the war would probably never have turned into an abolitionist crusade, so we can at least thank Virginia’s dead sons for that much — though I don’t suppose Bob McDonnell would appreciate the more self-defeating aspects of Confederate Heritage.


In any event, and for what it’s worth, I’m proposing that April be known henceforth as West Virginia Appreciation Month. Feel free to e-mail the Governor’s office and ask him to take a few moments this April to recognize the patriotism of those nearly three dozen Virginia counties that refused to make war in defense of white supremacy.

Hell, even the Power Line guys think McDonnell botched this one miserably.  I'll tell you what, if this is the new "We're not racists!" Southern GOP designed to appeal to a wider voting demographic as the country becomes more and more culturally and racially diverse...you're doing it wrong.