Sunday, June 26, 2005

Defending Dean

Blogged:

"Republicans say Howard Dean is intemperate for calling them 'pretty much a white, Christian party.' (Republican Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri accused Dean of 'throw[ing] some of the most below-the-belt political punches in recent memory.') If that's so, then we must assume it is purely coincidental that 18 of 21 senators--and, most notably, every Southern senator--who declined to co-sponsor a resolution 'apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation' turned out to be ... Republicans (including noted civil rights activist Trent 'I'm-proud-my-state-voted-for-segregationist- Strom-Thurmond-for-president' Lott).

But what exactly did the Republicans find objectionable about this purely symbolic resolution? We might be tempted to conclude that they look back fondly on the days of lynching. But then we would be accused of hate-mongering."