After Gen. John Kelly's appearance on The Ingraham Angle, he was promptly attacked by the left. He is accused of lying, being ignorant, and much worse because he called Gen. Robert E. Lee "honorable" and said the cause of the Civil War was "a lack of compromise". Both are true statements, but technical accuracy was not his objective.

Gen. Lee was an honorable man. Today's leftists cannot agree to that fact because their judgement is clouded by decades of political brainwashing, the re-writing of history and an entrenched political narrative. Gen. Kelly states the case very clearly, calmly and accurately.

Though there were many attempts at compromise between the Constitution and the Civil War, none were successful. Again, Gen Kelly was correct in his opinion, the lack of compromise, effective compromise, resulted in war. If the leaders of the time had been able to negotiate an effective compromise, instead of a compromise per decade, a different conclusion could and should have resulted. The people of the time failed. The radicals won, the country bled. And, as General Kelly said, a Civil War was necessary to force an end to the division.

Gen. Kelly was also attempting to be instructive as to the divide in our time. The entrenchment and commitment to our respective positions is just as dangerous today. If we cannot find effective compromise regarding our important issues, or a unifying principle, we may also be known in history as the Americans who failed to avoid a painful or even catastrophic solution.

The radical left's narrative is that the Civil War was fought over slavery, racism then - racism now, it was not. That is far too simple & narrow a perspective. Read the South Carolina secession articles. Slavery was only one of many issues stated. Virginia farm boys who did not own slaves, yet left their family farms and walked hundreds of miles to join the Confederate army, not for slavery (or hate), but for the State of Virginia. Honor. Like Robert E. Lee. That's why in the South the Civil War is still referred to by many as 'the war of northern aggression'. Lincoln had to make the War about slavery in 1863 to get the support of northern abolitionists when support in the north for the War to preserve the Union was waning.

None of Gen. Kelly's comments fit the radical left's modern narrative, so they attack.

Gen. Kelly is just the latest necessary target of their demonization for daring to gently introduce a reasoned and instructive perspective for us all. This dug in position of 'I'm right and you're wrong', evidenced by the left's reaction, makes the historic context he offers for consideration even more important.