Walter Russell Mead Brings the Crazy

Check out this exchange between Hugh Hewitt and Walter Russell Mead:

HH: Okay, and then off to Yale. Now before we go much further, explain to people what victor’s amnesia is.

WRM: Well, it’s a condition I noticed when I went up north, that as a kid growing up in the South, we all knew everything about the Civil War. You know, people could sit around and say you know, if only Stonewall Jackson had gotten two hours earlier or whatever, in the North, in Massachusetts, they didn’t know anything about it. And sometimes, usually it would be kids whose ancestors’ names I knew. They did not know anything about the Civil War. They won the Civil War. It was over. They’ve moved on. In the South, they hadn’t.

HH: And as a result, the South nursed some wounds that are lingering still, and that will apply to other places in the world, vis-à-vis the West.

WRM: That’s right, and that’s one of the things I was very lucky to have that Southern experience, because we know what it’s like to be crushed by Yankee imperialism. And to know that you have to get along in the system these other people are making, whether you like it or not. And also, as a Southerner, you realize well, in some ways, do I want slavery back? No, I do not. So you have this kind of mixed thing of you resent their victory, you resent their arrogance and their ignorance, and at the same time, you’ve got to acknowledge that well, yes, probably Lincoln was right about slavery, and Jefferson Davis was wrong.

"Probably"? He's not sure? This bit's equally ridiculous:

HH: You’re pretty harsh in your assessments of President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld. Are you certain about those assessments?

WRM: I’m not certain about very much in this world. I’m confident, I suppose, that for example, if Bush had, if Bush knew before going into Iraq that things would have turned out as they have done, he would have done many things differently.

Wisdom for the ages, folks! And thank you, New Republic, for giving this moron a platform.