Forrest Dumped (​Nathan Bedford, That Is, From Tennessee's Capitol)

Look upon his works, ye mighty, and puke.

Yet another monument to treason and enslavement came down today, and it was a significant one: Tennessee legislators and visitors to the state Capitol in Nashville can now go about their business without walking past the bust of slave trader, Confederate general, war criminal, and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. The bust was hardly a precious part of state history, having only been placed in the Capitol in 1978; the Capitol itself dates back to shortly before the Civil War.

The treasonous murderer's bust is gone, and will be moved to the Tennessee State Museum. Unfortunately, it will not be converted into a urinal in its new location.

After years of public calls for the bust to be removed from its place of honor, and of Confederate confederates insisting the horrid thing stay, last year Gov. Bill Lee said it was time for the bust to go. The State Building Commission voted yesterday to move the bust, the last formal requirement necessary. Workers hauled it away this morning.

In a remarkable development running counter to the dire warnings of those who still have a hard-on for the failed state that was the Confederacy, no Americans have been rendered incapable of remembering the history of the Civil War. This is hardly a surprise, given that most moderately successful TV shows have longer runs than the Confederate States of America. "Perfect Strangers" ran for eight seasons, and nobody wants a statue of Mark Linn-Baker. (Bronson Pinchot doesn't need any more , either.)

Following the vote yesterday, the Tennessean reports, members of the legislature's Black Caucus gathered near the bust to celebrate the decision.

Other monuments will also be relocated with Forrest, as part of a general retreat, as the Tennessean notes:

[The] state will also relocate the busts of U.S. Admirals David Farragut and Albert Gleaves to form a military exhibit at the state museum. The measure was approved last summer by the State Capitol Commission, and then overwhelmingly in March by the Tennessee Historical Commission.

Someone is no doubt very pleased with what a clever move it was to move a Union Navy admiral like Farragut. See? Nothing to do with which side they fought on! 

Tennessee's idiot Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who was apparently named because he was conceived on a road atlas in the back of a Buick, posted a lengthy whine on Twitter yesterday in which he complained that the removal of Forrest's bust to an actual fucking museum where it will remain on display marks the start of some sort of statue genocide, because that's just how Those People are:

Without historical context, we would have no Tennessee heroes, only villains. No Christian saints, only sinners. The left-wing activists who are pushing an anti-American, anti-history agenda here in Tennessee and across the nation will not stop with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The woke mob means ultimately to uproot and discard not just Southern symbols, but American heroes and history as well. This is not the end. It is the beginning.

The left will move on to the next figure or monument and demand that we again kneel at the altar of political correctness. While the governor and the constitutional officers did not stand with me today, I hope they will next time. Because more fights are coming.

Perhaps the state where Dolly Parton lives, and where the nation's first abolitionist newspaper was founded, will manage to find a hero again someday. It'll be tough, but we believe that someday, even Mr. McNally might find something to celebrate in people who didn't murder surrendering Union soldiers , both Black and white, and who didn't help lead a hate group.

Also, in a potential sign that people's heads are already clearing in the Volunteer State, Tennessee's top health official today announced that the state will resume outreach programs recommending childhood vaccines . Last week, the state's director for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization programs, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, was shitcanned because she was too eager to vaccinate teenagers against COVID-19. That firing was inexplicably followed by a halt to all vaccine information programs, including for routine childhood vaccines.

Who knows, perhaps at some point the sole remaining memorial to the Confederacy will be that completely batshit fiberglass statue of Forrest on private land in Nashville. It's both hilarious and terrifying, and a fitting monument to a terrible idea. Oh yes, and maybe Donald Trump's fake civil war battle marker. 

Of the visual horror in Nashville, Stephen Colbert said, "Apparently the Confederacy was founded by skirt-wearing nutcrackers riding wet lizards."

How true this is.

[ Tennnessean / Tennessean ]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month to help us keep history alive, and also fart jokes.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .