National Review Writer On Bundy: Heroes Of The Alamo Probably Had ‘Repugnant’ Views, Too

Rancher Cliven Bundy speaks at a protest area near Bunkerville, Nev. Wednesday, April 16, 2014. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher)
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National Review correspondent Kevin Williamson, who recently compared Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to Mahatma Gandhi, told TPM in an email on Thursday that he thought Bundy’s racially charged comments were “lamentable” but they were “separate” from Bundy’s standoff with the Bureau of Land Management.

“Mr. Bundy’s racial rhetoric is lamentable and backward,” Williamson said in an email. “It is also separate from the fundamental question here, which is the federal government’s acting as an absentee landlord for nine-tenths of the state of Nevada.”

“I very strongly suspect that most of the men who died at the Alamo held a great many views that I would find repugnant; we remember them for other reasons.”

On April 15, Williamson wrote in defense of Bundy for National Review Online: “Of course the law is against Cliven Bundy. How could it be otherwise? The law was against Mohandas Gandhi, too, when he was tried for sedition.”

“Bundy’s stand should not be construed as a general template for civic action,” he wrote at the time. “It is nonetheless the case that, in measured doses, a little sedition is an excellent thing.”

Watch the video of Bundy:

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