One of the key promoters of the stupid birther madness.

The subject was supposed to be health care reform.

Congressman Poe is most noted for his enthusiastic support of the racist Posey "Birther Bill".

He's also noted for giving a lot of speeches on the House floor, a lot of speeches, a whole lot of speeches.

One of those speeches was given on May 7, 2007, urging immediate authorization of funds for the Iraq war:

Mr. Speaker, does anybody realize there’s a war going out there in the desert sands of Iraq and the rough mountains of Afghanistan? Apparently not, or Congress would be taking care of our troops. Mr. Speaker, the troops will be out of funds to carry the fight to the enemy by the end of June. So where’s the money? Spending money is what Congress does. Why hasn’t this body provided the funds for our troops and equipment and for more personnel?

This is an emergency. Delay will put our troops at risk. We should authorize the funds now. Send equipment now. And, if needed, send more troops. The American people expect our military to do their duty. Well, the American people expect us to do ours as well. Congress needs to quit talking about supporting the troops, and put money where our mouths seem to be. Nathan Bedford Forrest, successful Confederate general, said it best about winning and victory and the means to do so. He said, ‘Git thar fustest with the mostest.’

Poe, like many other Forrest groupies, misquotes the general. What Forrest actually said was “get there first with the most men.”

Congressman Poe fancies himself a history buff, and he should be well aware that his idol, Forrest, was one of the founders, and the first Grand Wizard, of the Ku Klux Klan.

Like other "successful" Confederate generals, and the unsuccessful ones for that matter, Forrest managed to send a lot of Confederate soldiers to their deaths, a relentless reduction in the human and economic resources of the south, which had to result in defeat and which continued to cost the south dearly for many decades after the Civil War, which, some say, still costs the south.

One of Forrest's "successes" was the massacre at Fort Pillow, where approximately 300 Tennessee cavalrymen and 300 mostly African-American Union troops were quickly overrun by a much larger Confederate force under Forrest's command. After resistance ended, Forrest's troops continued to shoot, burn, and mutilate both the survivors and the dead.

But Congressman Poe should know this too.

Poe, it appears, is one of those who still fosters the myth that there was something noble about the Confederacy, something worthy in the "cause", that it was about patriotism and liberty and courage and states' rights.

That myth is exploded by the most casual survey of the facts. Secession, the Confederacy, and the Civil War were about one thing, an attempt to maintain the evil that was slavery.

Take a look at the Texas Ordinance of Secession: www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm