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VA’s McDonnell: Overlooking Slavery to Promote Tourism

David Streeter — April 8, 2010 – 11:26 am | Republicans Comments (0) Add a comment

Virginia’s Republican Governor Bob McDonnell issued a proclamation designating April to be “Confederate History Month” in Virginia. His proclamation reversed former Democratic Governor Mark Warner’s decision to end the practice and former Democratic Governor Tim Kaine’s refusal to reinstate it. Reportedly, McDonnell’s motivation was to promote tourism to Virginia’s Civil War battlefields and historical sites.

Celebrating Virginia’s Confederate legacy is a contentious issue on its own. However, McDonnell took it to a new extreme by completely omitting any reference to slavery from his proclamation. As Kaine said of his successor:

A failure to acknowledge the central role of slavery in the Confederacy and deeming insignificant the reprehensible transgression of moral standards of liberty and equality that slavery represented is simply not acceptable in the America of the 21st century.

McDonnell apologized (after being slammed by the local media) and later issued an addendum to his proclamation that recognized the significance of slavery to the Confederacy.

For someone who is trying to market himself as a moderate, McDonnell is turning out to be anything but.

Below are some discussions about McDonnell’s proclamation:

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