Copyright New York Times Company
Jun 19, 2005
DOES being in Congress mean always
having to say you're sorry?
Last week, the Senate issued a formal apology
to lynching victims and their descendants, marking the first
time Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any
reason. The intent was to erase what lawmakers called a
stain on the Senate's history: its repeated refusal, throughout
the first half of the 20th century, to make lynching a federal
crime.
This being Washington, however, not everyone
was on board.
When the resolution passed Monday -- by
voice vote, so that lawmakers did not have to go on record
-- 20 senators had yet to become co-sponsors or sign their
names to a placard expressing support. By week's end, with
liberal bloggers selling T-shirts (''My senator went to
Washington and all I got was a lousy lynching'') listing
the missing signatories, the number had dwindled to eight,
all Republicans.
''Who are the dirty eight?'' demanded Donna
Brazile, the Democratic strategist, whose autobiography,
''Cooking With Grease,'' recounts memories of growing up
black in racially segregated Louisiana.
Their identities could be learned by looking
at a list of Senate supporters maintained by Senator Mary
Landrieu of Louisiana, the measure's chief Democratic sponsor.
Absent were Lamar Alexander of Tennessee; Thad Cochran of
Mississippi; John Cornyn of Texas; Mike Enzi of Wyoming;
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire; Trent Lott of Mississippi;
John Sununu of New Hampshire; and Craig Thomas of Wyoming.
Each had his reasons. Some said they didn't
find it necessary to ''co-sponsor every nice piece of legislation,''
in the words of Senator Sununu. Others, like Senators Enzi
and Gregg, said through spokesmen that they supported the
measure, noting that it could not have passed by voice vote
if they had objected.
Senator Alexander, in a lengthy speech submitted
for the Congressional record, argued the best way for the
Senate ''to condemn lynching is to get to work'' on legislation
promoting good schools and better health care for blacks.
But some, like Senators Cochran, Cornyn
and Lott, raised pointed questions about the wisdom of official
apologies.
Is it necessary, they asked, for politicians
to confess to sins they personally did not commit? And when
the government begins apologizing, where and when does it
stop?
''I don't think I'll get in the business
of apologizing for acts that previous Senates took,'' Senator
Cochran said.
His Mississippi colleague, Senator Lott,
who lost his post as Senate majority leader several years
ago over racially insensitive remarks, said: ''Where do
we end all of this? Are we going to apologize for not doing
the right thing on Social Security?''
But in the recent past, Congress has been
saying ''I'm sorry'' with greater frequency. In 1988, Congress
passed, and President Reagan signed, a measure apologizing
to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World
War II, and offering $20,000 in reparations to surviving
internees. Checks and letters of apology began going out
the following year.
In 1990, Congress apologized to uranium
miners and others injured by nuclear testing. In 1993, it
apologized to native Hawaiians for the role the government
played in overthrowing their kingdom. And some, including
Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil
rights activist, want Congress to apologize for slavery.
Political apologies do not come easily,
though, and politicians know to choose their words precisely.
President Bill Clinton, who rose to the
White House by feeling other people's pain, was a master
of careful contrition. In 1998, on a trip to Uganda, he
stopped just short of apologizing for slavery; instead he
expressed regret for the American role in the slave trade.
Republicans, including Representative Tom DeLay of Texas,
now the House Republican leader, ridiculed him.
''Here's a flower child with gray hairs,''
Mr. DeLay said at the time, ''doing exactly what he did
back in the 60's: he's apologizing for the actions of the
United States.'' When the Senate took up the reparations
bill for Japanese-Americans, the vote was 69 to 27 -- a
sizable, but not overwhelming endorsement.
Some said the money cheapened the apology,
and some said the talk itself was cheap. Not so, according
to dozens of relatives of lynching victims who came to the
Capitol last week, as well as other recipients of other
official apologies.
''My father-in-law had the letter of apology,
from the president of the United States, framed and hanging
in his home,'' said Representative Doris Matsui, a California
Democrat, whose parents, in-laws and late husband, Robert,
were all interned during World War II. ''It was that important
to members of their generation.''
One open question is what benefit a politician
gets from apologizing. Senator George Allen, Republican
of Virginia, for instance, has been criticized in the past
for displaying a noose in his law office; he called it a
lasso and said it was part of a Western paraphernalia collection.
Now contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Allen was
the lead Republican sponsor of the lynching apology -- a
wise move, said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist.
''Anytime you're going to run for national
office you make a list of who your attackers will be,''
Mr. Reed said. ''Anything you can do to mollify them or
take them off that list is a smart move.''
But Ms. Brazile, the Democratic strategist,
was not so certain. ''That all depends,'' she said, ''on
what comes after the apology. They have to walk the walk
after they talk the talk.''
