John Kelly’s take on Gen. Robert E. Lee unleashes an avalanche of sick accusations

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly unleashed an avalanche of backlash from the left when he condemned the removal of Confederate statues and called Robert E. Lee an “honorable man.”

Kelly waded into controversial territory as he spoke about the removal of Confederate monuments and symbols in a rare interview on the debut of Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News Channel.

“Well, history’s history. There are certain things in history that were good, and other things that were not so good,” Kelly said on”The Ingraham Angle,” Monday. “I think we make a mistake as a society, and certainly as individuals, when we take what is accepted as right and wrong, and go back 100, 200, 300 years or more and say, ‘What Christopher Columbus did was wrong.’”

“You know, 500 years later, it’s inconceivable to me that you would take what we think now and apply it back then. I think it’s just very, very dangerous. I think it shows you just how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is,” the former Marine general told Ingraham.

“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country.,” Kelly continued.

“It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today,” he said. “But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

Kelly’s remarks ignited a progressive meltdown on social media as the phrase “Civil War” began trending following the interview, with an outcry from even Chelsea Clinton and Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

Kelly’s comments were likened to those of President Trump when he blamed violence “on both sides” at a rally in Charlottesville in August.

Many just spewed names at the 67 year-old former Secretary of Homeland Security, calling him a racist and accusing him of defending slavery.

But in an opinion piece for The Washington Times, Cheryl Chumley defended Kelly for “barvely” speaking up about General Lee.

“Calling Lee honorable in today’s political climate is about as dangerous as donning a Make America Great Again cap — it’ll bring out the baseball bats from the antifa types, for sure,” she wrote in the column published Tuesday. “But Kelly’s quite right. Lee may have been divisive, not to mention contradictory. But what battlefield leader isn’t?”

Lee “did the job he was appointed, as a military officer and commander,” the writer explained, arguing that skewing Lee’s decision to go with state’s rights to mean he was pro-slavery is “a historical half-truth.”

“But it’s one the left has used with great success lately to tear down the fabric of America’s founding,” Chumley wrote. “Destroying monuments, removing monuments and relocating monuments for the sake of a few who profess to be offended is, as Kelly also said, dangerous.”

Many Twitter users agreed, coming to the defense of the former Marine who served in the military for nearly five decades.

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Frieda Powers

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