You may have heard that in his star-turn yesterday on Meet the Press, Ron Paul said that the American Civil War was a mistake (brought on by a power-hungry Abraham Lincoln) and came out for so-called 'gradual emancipation'.

Now, there are so many things morally and historically wrong with what Paul's saying here, a few of which my old grad school pal Ari Kelman explains here.

But I must say there's something almost endearing about this unforced error in wingnut extremism. Did Paul give in to the heavy media pressure to come up with a clear position on slavery and the Civil War? What's even funnier is that even in verb tense he talks about it as a live issue. "The way I'm advising that it should have been done," he tells Russert.

Advising? For better or worse, isn't the decision on whether to have the Civil War and emancipate the slaves pretty much moot as a public policy issue?