This
Terry Neal column on washingtonpost.com summarizes the issues on the lynching resolution as well as I have seen them summarized.
Here's just a sample, his lead paragraph:
There's not much these days that the two parties in Washington can rally around, as evidenced by the increasingly shrill tone here. You might think that one thing on which everyone in both parties could agree would be a resolution apologizing for the Senate's failure, over many decades, to make it a federal crime for racists to hunt black people like animals and hang them from trees.
More after the cut.
In the column, Neal points out in an very nonpartisan way the clear issues at hand here. While none of these senators can honestly be called pro-lynching, their utter lack of respect for the history of the country leads to some inevitable questions about their motivations.
Especially now, when Dick Durbin gets called to the well of the Senate to apologize for telling the truth, how on earth are the holdout Senators not being taken to task?
Here's Neal on questioning their motivations to hold out:
Really, what reasonable person thinks any of the senators who didn't sign the lynching apology bill actually endorses that morbid practice?
The better question is, by declining to sign on to the resolution, did they practice symbolic politics, just as those who signed it also practiced symbolic politics? The senators who failed to sign the measure prior to its passage -- with the exception of Voinovich -- were either from southern states or states with relatively small African American populations. Only the senators themselves know their true motivations.
So, there you have it. It's refreshing to see an outlet like the Post recognize the hypocrisy of attacking Howard Dean and Dick Durbin and not going after Seantors who fail to actively comdemn lynching.