TJ's another one of those "complex" people (to use the formulation Brad DeLong employed here recently in another connection) whom I detest in an uncomplicated way. Doug informs me that "most of the U.S. left is very pro-Jefferson," and I can't imagine why.
I've described TJ in family conversations as the Martha Stewart of his age, but that's really unfair to Martha -- she, at least, does some of her work herself and hasn't indulged her much-admired taste by being a deadbeat. That's a lot more than you can say for TJ -- whose fabulous accomplishments in design, etc., seem to have been carried out largely by stolen labor and money. Then there's TJ the thinker, who couldn't quite accept blacks as human ... unless having sex with them -- quite the visionary .
All in all, I think there's a good case to be made for bulldozing the Jefferson Memorial.
Carl Remick