I read this and thought surely Richard Cohen's column couldn't be as bad as all that, but it was.

what the f....really? REALLY???

I echo min's thoughts.

Just a historical note- until around 1965, the dominant historical interpretation of the Civil War, in both Northern and Southern schools, was the Dunning school, which held that slavery was relatively benign, the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery and the South was treated horribly during the Reconstruction Era. (I was surprised when someone first told me that Northern schools were parrotting Confederate propaganda that late.) So Cohen is probably being accurate about his recollections of what he was taught about slavery when he was young.