Conservative chatter erupted over the weekend after MSNBC host Chris Hayes said on his show Sunday that he felt "uncomfortable" calling fallen military veterans "heroes."

Hayes argued on his weekend show "Up with Chris Hayes" that referring to fallen soldiers in such a way is "rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war."

"Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’?” he said. “I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

Everyone from conservative bloggers and commentators to Veterans' organizations responded.

Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein called Hayes "the human embodiment" of the word "effete," saying it "almost seems a parody of the conflicted intellectual."

“What does it say about the liberal chattering class, which Hayes epitomizes, that it chokes on calling America’s fallen what they rightly and surely are: heroes?” he wrote.

Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) spokesman Joe Davis also sounded off on Hayes' comments.

“If Mr. Hayes feels uncomfortable, I suggest he enlist, go to war, then come home to what he expects is a grateful nation but encounters the opposite. It’s far too easy to cast stones from inexperience," David told The Daily Caller.