I've wanted to say this on many occasions after glancing at articles published by the Daily Kos but, this story takes the cake... so, here goes... Stick it, Kos.
From a Kos reader with a working moral compass:
"Arlington is our nation's national cemetery for all of our war dead. It would be unseemly for the President of our country, who is also the Commander in Chief, to selectively honor which dead soldiers are currently the most popular, based on how a group of historic scholars are trying to criticize the DoC. Surely they must know that this action of not laying a wreath will be interpreted as an insult or a cheap political shot. There are places to make political points. Veteran's cemeteries aren't one of them.
When Lincoln (and subsequently President Taft and President Wilson) honored the dead, he was showing he was willing to make a covenant of faith with the survivors of the defeated side, that they would once again be thought of as belonging to this nation.
For the southerners with ancestors there, it is not about who won and who lost, or who was right or wrong, but about having family willing to die for their country and being included in a national recognition that this country went through many great wars (independence, civil, world wars, etc.) yet still managed to remain a country that respects its soldiers' sacrifice." -- AmericanRiverCanyon
Inscription on the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery - click photo to enlarge
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Obama, the nation's first black president, planned to continue tradition and have aides leave a wreath at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, the 600-acre site that once was Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's estate. But the White House also will send a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington's historically black U Street neighborhood.
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