Voting Rights and the Passive

Okay, if you've been reading here for long you know I think that the passive voice has its own virtues. But it's certainly true that you can use it to avoid laying responsibility where it belongs. And here's a great example of that, from today's Writer's Almanac (my emphasis):

It was on this day in 1965 that Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act that ended the long era of voter discrimination in many Southern states. Johnson had been delaying legislation on voting rights, because he thought it was too soon for it to succeed. But after a group of civil rights marchers were attacked in Selma, Alabama, he gave a speech on TV, in which he said: "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote ... it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."

"Were attacked" - that's classic, absolutely classic. You could be forgiven (if you're young enough) for thinking that maybe they were attacked by a gang of unreconstructed yahoos. Instead, as the USDoJ web site puts it:

Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery, persuaded the President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings began soon thereafter on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act.

Looks like Garrison just didn't want to open that can of worms... And I'm not sure I blame him, given who he is.