On the Laura Ingraham show Gen. Kelly said Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. Kelly also said he had nothing to apologize for. Agree/dis?

She's right. every time we make an attempt to apply 21st century sensibilities to the 18th and 19th centuries, we make a mess out of it every time. None of those people have anything to apologize for as it was their world as they knew it and understood it. Slavery was a burning issue of those times and in hindsight, we see how it was resolved. It has always been easy to say what should have been after the fact. That's what makes hindsight perfect. We must accept that the institution of slavery was accommodated by compromises on every level in this country. Congress, state and federal authorities and the judiciary upheld and perpetrated the institution for decades in an effort to hold the nation together. Lee was probably as torn as anyone in the nation over the decisions that were set before him. As a Colonel in the US Army, he had to weigh setting his career aside for an uncertain future with the state and people he loved. Lee was the choice of General in Chief Winfield Scott to head up Union forces at the onset of hostilities, with Lincoln's consent. Lee's response was to resign his commission and cast his lot with the state of Virginia. It's interesting that after years of being out manned, out supplied and out gunned that he cobbled together a string of miraculous victories in the field when odds dictated otherwise. What's more striking in all of it is the fact that his troops loved, admired and respected him. They weren't followers out of a sense of fear or necessity, or even force. The man had qualities that we could use in today's world. I think it's remarkable that we have a talent for sitting in high minded moral judgement of the past, but we seem incapable of finding the kind of leadership in crisis that seemed to come so naturally with these people. I'll put it this way, what would it be like if these people of the past could come and sit in judgement over us and assess where we are in handling our own problems. As Uncle Bob likes to say:"If you look around ya, it's jest possible to see folks so heavenly minded, they ain't no earthly good".