[Lurkinanloomin]

Yes, let’s besmirch one of the greatest men America has ever produced. He is still the only man to get through West Point without a demerit.
His example paved the way for reconciliation after the war.

[rjsimmon]

The case against Lee begins with the fact that he betrayed his oath to serve the United States.

No he did not. He resigned his commission, which effectively revokes his oath. He decided to remain faithful to Virginia, which is the essence of States rights.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Then lets get rid of all JFK, MLK, Teddy, Bobby, Cesar Chavez references.

After all, these people killed others, were serial adulters, whoremongers, liars, ignored/violate laws, endorsed voter fraud, encouraged/protected illegal immigrants, and had far left/Communist conections (i.e., willing to deny Americans freedoms and rights)

So get rid of them all. Turnabout is fair play

[Kickass Conservative]

Read the Headline and thought Brooks was commenting on the Dukes of Hazzard Dodge Charger.

[Himyar]

I don’t need my culture “shaped” thank you very much. I am a proud Southerner and you mess with Robert E Lee at your peril.

[Terry L Smith]

There are two scenes portrayed in the movie “Gods and Generals”, pertaining to soliloquoys (sp) from General Robert E. Lee.

I suggest that this feller Brooks, who possibly still suffers from priapism when thinking of Obama’s pants creases, go back and watch those two clips, then rewrite his opinions.

[ClearCase_guy]

Who cares what a far left Democrat like David Brooks thinks?

[Mike Darancette]

An officer resigning his commission is honorable. As to sitting out the war Lee was offered and declined command of all Union forces before he accepted a position with his country, Virginia.

[jeffersondem]

From David Brooks Wikipedia entry:

“Usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don’t know political philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than me. [...] I remember distinctly an image of—we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”

This is the David Brooks I know.

[gattaca]

I know Robert E Lee had respect from his men. I hate to see him “borked” or “flagged”

[Will88]

Just what we need, a column criticizing General Lee from the New York Times phony, token conservative.

[DoodleDawg]

Her father’s will (somewhat impractically) said they were to be freed, but Lee didn’t free them.

I believe the terms of the will said the slaves were to be freed within five years of his father-in-law's death. Lee did free the slaves, although the last of them were not freed until a few months after the fifth anniversary of date his father-in-law died.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Brooks’ son serves in a foreign army (Israeli Defense Force). I wonder if future sanctimonious fascists will consider that treasonous.

[mojito]

Brooks brings out “Stalin's airbrush” for General Lee.

It's important to remember that Brooks isn't writing for any real conservatives, as no real conservative consults the NYSlimes for meaningful commentary. A real conservative will experience mild nausea or retching if exposed to the Slimes’ editorial pages for more than a few minutes.

Rather, Brooks see himself as functioning as a soundboard for progressivism's loopier ideas, and if he thinks they will pass muster in the general culture, he wholeheartedly endorses them.

So Brooks just signaled to the lunatics that they are free to go after Gen. Lee, as the time is seen as ripe to demonize whites, and especially southern whites and strip them of their pride in their past.

We'll see how this turns out. I think Brooks just opened a hornet's nest.

[Bobby_Taxpayer]

As a descendant of a LONG line of Lee’s from King George County, VA, Brooks can go to hell.

[Dick Bachert]

10 CAUSES OF WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
Long but fascinating read.
Yes, the history books ARE written by the victors. It’s also true that truth, crushed to earth, will rise!
Golly, here’s some now...
http://www.confederateamericanpride.com/10causes.html

[Servant of the Cross]

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address dedicated, consecrated and honored all of the brave American men, living and dead at the time, who struggled in that great civil war. His address absolutely positively includes General Robert E. Lee.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war ... testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated ... can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate ... we cannot consecrate ... we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ... and that government of the people ... by the people ... for the people ... shall not perish from the earth. "

That pantywaist girly man David Brooks would dare to challenge any remembrance of General Lee is completely disgusting.

[nathanbedford]

David Brooks superficially tries to strike an evenhanded pose in his treatment of Robert E Lee. He even cautions against passing 21st-century judgment against a 19th-century man. But let us not forget the Brooks himself is hardly culturally in tune with a 19th-century Virginia, a Tidewater aristocrat at that, a Christian, a believing Christian at that, a military man, a committed and heroic military man of great physical as well as moral courage. Rather, David Brooks is a 21st century Jew, a secular Jew at that, who writes for (gasp) The New York Times.

Much of what he writes is deceptive. For example, Lee was not charged as executor of his father-in-law's estate to manumet his wife's inherited slaves until five years passed and the war intervened. Brooks does not tell us these relevant facts.

Brooks suggests that Lee committed treason against his country but the contemporary culture of Virginia was to the effect that his country was Virginia.

Brooks limits the meaning of the Confederate flag to southern heritage which he implies must give way because it is also associated with racism. But the flag also represents federalism, a real and legitimate interpretation of the Constitution which, one might add, impelled Robert E Lee to decline the offer to lead the Yankee armies and to stay true to this interpretation of the Constitution. According to this interpretation, codified in the ninth and 10th amendments, Robert E Lee would have committed treason had he drawn his sword against his native state.

Lee's conduct after the surrender is impeccable and he sought by personal example to effect reconciliation to the union.

Much of the racism associated with the Confederate battle flag has been engrafted onto this flag in the 20th and 21st century by merchants of victimhood who seek a villain and a symbol the destruction of which can be equated with their obtaining power, power to destroy federalism, power to distort the Constitution, power to substitute their judgment for the will of the majority of the people, power to rewrite history. It is not for David Brooks or the left, whom he represents by the way, to tell those who support the flag what their motives are, rather decency if not logic demands that those who support the flag have the right to express their motivations on their own.

As to the character of Robert E Lee and his inspiring biography, I have expressed my feelings a number of times in replies that follow:

--------------------------------------------

As to the observation that Lee, "would have done better to have kept his oath and remained true to the US government", that is a judgment that is made after a century and a half of perspective. It is clear that all his life Lee regarded his choice to have been the moral choice. I think that we have to judge historical characters upon the knowledge that they had or which was reasonably available to them. Judging by this standard, I will not substitute my judgment for his when he declined the union' s offer of command of their forces and to retire to his home state and not to draw his sword except in the defense of Virginia.

If I recall correctly, there were two "Lee to the rear" incidents where he exposed himself to peril in front of his troops to rally them in the dark days of 1864 when the weight of numbers was simply debriding his forces through a pitilessly imposed attrition. The quoted words were of his troops promising they would plug the hole if he would personally withdraw to the rear and get out of harm's way. These incidents lead me to believe that he was wholly committed to the cause during the war.

Although he behaved as a model citizen of the Union after the war, his reticence about the war was rarely broken, but a couple of remarks seem to indicate a deep regret that the cause was lost. Certainly he remained nostalgically fond of his officers and men to the end of his life.

Was it immoral for Lee to have decided that the larger moral commitment was to his state rather than his country? Clearly, within his culture his choice was the statistically normal one and a fully rational one.

----------------------------------------

The Confederates were so poor that half of them were wearing captured Yankee uniforms. The idea of Confederate gray is largely a misnomer, many of them had butternut as a result of home weaving. General Lee put on his best uniform which he rarely wore to maintain the dignity of his army while he alone underwent the indignity of the surrender, an unavoidable but honorable act forced upon them by circumstance which all the efforts of duty and honor could not avoid. Upon learning that he was surrounded with no hope of reinforcements, that his military situation was hopeless, Lee remarked, "Then there is nothing for it but I must go to General Grant and surrender and I would rather die a thousand deaths." With that action he performed his last duty as a soldier and picked up his duties as a citizen of the Federal Republic which he served faithfully until his death.

Yes he took a staff, I think of two, but he did not take an entourage. Rather, he took responsibility.

Equally, he took responsibility in declining his subordinates suggestion to filter his men out through Yankee lines to begin to wage a guerilla. I have described this in my about page to emphasize the moral character of the man about whom I often assert, "the noblest and sublimest American of them all." When we came out of the McLean house having executed the articles of surrender as he waited for Traveler to be brought to him he was alone as he clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "too bad, too bad, oh too bad." None of these actions were consistent with a vainglorious, splendidly uniformed commander.

-------------------------------------------

Perhaps the noblest and sublimest American of them all, Robert Edward Lee embodied the virtues praised in his father's eulogy to the man who inspired the economium, "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." Whether George Washington equaled the sublimity of Robert E. Lee or Lee the nobility of character of his hero, George Washington, is a question whose contemplation delights and edifies the soul.

[ifinnegan]

There is a collective psychosis going on and it is Stalinist.

This is not an issue or question of any import or impact.

Yet it is the issue of the day, obsessed over, universally supported.

The rapidity and universality of the Pavlovian response of the media/political class is frightening.

There is no reason to expect reason, logic or rationality anymore.

[Ohioan]

The writer obsesses about Slavery & Lee's oath; but with actual understanding of neither in an historical or philosophical sense.

The United States were hardly the only place where Slavery was accepted at the time, without the moral qualms that the writer suggests. Not only in Brazil, until the 1880s, but in what was to become French West Africa, the labor system was completely accepted. (For example, in 1880 Senegal, the jewel of French West Africa, the population consisted of two classes, slaves and slave owners. When both Clinton & Bush II went over to Senegal and denounced "slavery," they were almost certainly addressing the great grandchildren of the slave owning class, who hoping for American dollars, politely listened, probably without informing their guest speakers of the reality.

As for General Lee's oath: It was to the Constitution, not to someone else's interpretation of where that loyalty actually lay, under the circumstances of Virginia's secession. The writer, here, arrogantly is assuming an interpretation of duty, that is not as obvious as he imagines.

General Douglas MacArthur--certainly an authority of Military Duty--treated both the Blue & Grey with equal respect in his classic Duty, Honor, Country.

Virginia's ratification of the Constitution was never understood as a permanent pledge to support all future office holders of the Federal Government. Such a theory would fly in the very face of Jefferson's definition of legitimate Government in the Declaration.

The writer is seeking to rationalize a result that he apparently desires. The piece does him no credit, whatsoever.