MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is obsessed with the bizarre collection of Hitler memorabilia that billionaire Harlan Crow has in his Texas home. He pondered whether anyone would be willing to touch it and what they would feel touching something that served a mass murderer.
Among the things at his Texas estate is a garden of statues of famous dictators. Crow calls it his "Garden of Evil" and explains that it honors all of those who prevailed over evil. It's something that he spoke to The Atlantic about, in an effort to sanitize his "collections."
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie didn't buy it.
"I still find his decision to collect these statues so odd, and so bizarre for a lot of the reasons you described," he explained. "He says they are there to commemorate the victims of atrocities, but one does not honor the victims of atrocities with statues of the people who committed the atrocities, right? There is no statue of bin Laden at Ground Zero. It does not make any sense."
Bouie also pointed out Crow's selective understanding of "evil." O'Donnell noted that there were no white supremacists or segregationists in his so-called "Garden of Evil."
"In a way that is unusual," Bouie continued. "As you mentioned, he does not seem to have any connection to U.S. history, or the terrible things that happened in our own history. The entire project, such that it is, is very strange, and in that interview, his attempts to explain it, to contextualize it, just for me, raised many more questions about what he is thinking than they provided any answers to. It is all very strange, all very strange."
O'Donnell pointed out that The Atlantic piece also ignores the links to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia.
"That is a great point. Harlan Crow has stated political goals, in terms of the intended candidates he funds, in terms of organizations he provides money for, the support he gives to the legal movement," explained Bouie. "It is in direct tension with the political values he says he holds. In direct tension with the stated opposition to Donald Trump. In tension with his apparent support for abortion rights. Again, if he is having conversations with Virginia Thomas, Virginia Thomas, who is a right-wing political activist, with very strong conservative views. It is, again, tough to understand how he rationalizes and thinks about his friendship with the Thomases in terms of his own stated political beliefs."
He noted that reading the interview made him think of Harlan Crow as a "low-information voter who just happens to have a billion dollars."
See the full conversation below or at the link here.
'There’s no statue of bin Laden at Ground Zero': Columnist questions Harlan Crow’s 'Garden of Evil'www.youtube.com
