This weekend, two statues were installed on the White House grounds. On the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building stands a statue of Christopher Columbus. On the south side is “Freedom’s Charge,” a life-size portrayal by Chas Fagan of two soldiers in the Continental Army, one with a rifle, the other with a billowing Bunker Hill flag.

In ordinary times, the temporary placement of such tokens of America history at the White House might pass without comment. These are not ordinary times. On the contrary, America is just now emerging from a destructive frenzy of woke self-loathing and iconoclasm. 

Just a few years ago, no emblem of American achievement was safe from crusading vandals. Statues of or monuments to presidents and warriors, inventors, explorers and captains of industry, all were subject to desecration, removal, or outright destruction. This was the era of the 1619 Project, when the New York Times and other organs of the propaganda press disseminated the grotesque calumny that the United States was created in order to perpetuate the chattel slavery. That statue of Columbus that now stands at the White House is an exact replica of one that protesters toppled, smashed and dumped into Baltimore harbor in 2020. The new statue is........

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