Or perhaps there is method in this after all. One of the original Senate sponsors of this resolution is George Allen, R-Va., widely believed to be planning a run for the presidency in 2008. Can it be his sly intention to remind America of just who filibustered anti-lynching legislation for 50 years? Why, Southern Democrats, that's who. Among the die-hard segregationists was Richard Russell, who has a building named after him in Washington. Another was J. Thomas Heflin (father of Howell), who reportedly explained in 1930 that "Whenever a Negro crosses this dead line between the white and the Negro races and lays his black hand on a white woman, he deserves to die." Filibuster = Democrat = Bad. Is that the formula Sen. Allen hopes to popularize? Interesting tactic.
But if the Senate is institutionally responsible for blocking anti-lynching legislation, may the same be said of the Democratic Party, institutionally? Shouldn't Howard Dean be apologizing for heading what was once the party of slavery? Things have changed? The pro-slavery, pro-Jim Crow Democrats are dead and gone; replaced by a new breed that would no more discriminate than walk on all fours? Um hmm. Why can we not say the same of the United States Senate?
But here's a thought. In 1975, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives comprehensively abandoned our ally, South Vietnam, denying them even bullets and gasoline. Doomed Vietnamese tried to cling to the skids of helicopters as Americans evacuated Saigon. Many living members of Congress participated in that shameful betrayal. An apology on that score would mean something.