The Question

Our commencement speaker is Jim Lehrer, a man who makes vanilla look spicy. (Hat tip if you know someone who actually thinks vanilla actually CAN be spicy. Schno, I'm looking in your direction.)

So in honor of Lehrer and his long history of presidential debate moderation, I've come up with what I believe to be the greatest question ever. Ask it and watch the hair fly. It's very simple, and anyone with an ounce of formal education knows the answer to it. But in answering it, you can just see politicians try to finesse their way around it in order to not alienate the southern vote. So here it is:

Was the Civil War fought because of slavery or states' rights?

Wammo. It's so deceptively loaded. Can you risk the alienation of so many people who still by the states' rights mumbo jumbo in order to speak the truth? Could you imagine any kid learning elementary history slap his forhead as some pol tries to finesse his way around it? Or am I just being a little ridiculous. I realize that a lot of people in the South think that it was fought over the slavery issue. But at the same time, I've also encountered a lot of people in the last couple of weeks who have spoken about their peculiar history classes in the South. A black girl in my class said that in elementary school she would actually feel herself rooting for the Confederacy until she slapped herself and awakened herself from the romantic vapors of revisionist history.