From ThinkProgress

RADICAL RIGHT — MCDONNELL: SLAVERY WASN’T ‘SIGNIFICANT’ ENOUGH TO BE INCLUDED IN MY CONFEDERACY PROCLAMATION: TP

Last week, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) “quietly declared April 2010 Confederate History Month,” calling on Virginians to, among other things, “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.” Notably absent from the proclamation, however, is any mention of slavery. McDonnell explained yesterday that he did not reference slavery because he focused on the issues that he “thought were most significant for Virginia.”

Neither of Virginia’s previous two governors, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, declared a Confederate History Month. Republican governor Jim Gilmore, who served from 1998-2002, did issue such proclamations but acknowledged slavery as “one of the causes of the war” and a practice that “degraded the human spirit” and “is abhorred and condemned by Virginians.” For his final proclamation in 2001, Gilmore replaced Confederate History Month with “a tribute to both black and white Civil War combatants that expressly denounces slavery as the root cause of the four-year conflict.” Gilmore’s predecessor, Republican George Allen, started the practice of Confederate History Month. He didn’t include slavery in his proclamation and, under significant pressure from civil rights leaders, eventually apologized.

As the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on April 12, 1997, Allen said, “Surely, I don’t want to upset anyone.

For those who are sincerely offended…I apologize.”

The American Prospect’s Adam Serwer writes that McDonnell’s proclamation is “telling” because “it reveals which Virginians he feels are ‘significant.'”