Hillary Clinton Compares GOP House To A Plantation

[MrsSpringsteen]

And bashes Bush administration. Will stuff like this backfire on her?

NEW YORK - Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as “one of the worst” in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.

Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors “on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you.”

Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.

The House “has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about,” said Clinton, D-N.Y. “It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.”

“We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence,” she said. “I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.”

A spokeswoman for the White House declined to comment and referred questions to the Republican National Committee.

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said: “On a day when Americans are focused on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Hillary Clinton is focused on the legacy of Hillary Clinton.”



they had this poll on msnbc.com, the results so far are 52 % her remarks weren't too harsh, 46 % said they were. 2% said "don't know

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10889047/

 

[BVS]

Well it's true, but it probably will backfire a little.

People will yell "race card"

 

[nbcrusader]

Yes, the unsubstantiated and unnecessary interjection of a racial image into the discussion will backfire on HRC.

And some people are ok with such behavior.

 

[verte76]

Yes, the unsubstantiated and unnecessary interjection of a racial image into the discussion will backfire on HRC.

And some people are ok with such behavior.

This liberal is not. I don't plan to support her for the nomination. Give me someone who's less self-absorbed.

 

[stammer476]

The definition of poor taste.

 

[U2democrat]

I never have liked Hillary. Warner '08!

 

[nathan1977]

She does know how plantations were run, right?

 

[Irvine511]

Yes, the unsubstantiated and unnecessary interjection of a racial image into the discussion will backfire on HRC.

yes, we do live in a colorblind society.

don't we.

 

[swizzlestick]

Not surprising. Very cowardly if you ask me considering the audience. Reminds me of when stars go over seas to bash on America or the administration because they know it will get cheers.

 

[nbcrusader]

yes, we do live in a colorblind society.

don't we.

And we will never get their when racism is used for political expediency.

 

[Irvine511]

And we will never get their when racism is used for political expediency.

i know.

thinking about race is *such* a drag.

it's way inappropriate to talk about race in front of an all-black audience. the nerve of her.

 

[Dreadsox]

Has anyone else heard the tape?

The audience did not even react to the line. The silence speaks louder than words. They did not appreciate the comment either.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

she is such a tool

 

[Irvine511]

Has anyone else heard the tape?

The audience did not even react to the line. The silence speaks louder than words. They did not appreciate the comment either.

what would have been an appropriate reaction?

i am not defending her comments, i really don't care; i just find it silly when people love to play the race card by saying that someone else is playing the race card.

which happens *all* the time.

 

[nbcrusader]

i am not defending her comments, i really don't care; i just find it silly when people love to play the race card by saying that someone else is playing the race card.

which happens *all* the time.

Are you suggesting that we cannot discuss if someone's racially charged comments are inappropriate? Or are such comments only permitted when suggesting racism?

 

[Irvine511]

Are you suggesting that we cannot discuss if someone's racially charged comments are inappropriate? Or are such comments only permitted when suggesting racism?

i am saying that the charge of comments being inappropriate when regard to race are every bit as much a playing of the race card as any comment made by Mrs. Clinton.

and such charges tend to stick to Democrats more.

did we hear similar outcries about "playing the race card" in Jesse Helms' early 1990s (exact year escapes me) re-election campagin when they showed a picture of a white hand holding a pink slip with the words "You needed that job; but they had to give it to a minority"? isn't that as much a playing of the race card as anything else? or can only "liberals" -- you know, someone who's an Iraq hawk and is wasting our time with supporting flag burning amendments -- receive such a charge?

again, i'm not defending HRC's comments.

i am sick of hearing people wondering why race is brought into political discussion when it shouldn't matter.

race matters.

only people who don't have to live with the social consequences of racism would ever think otherwise.

perhaps one has to really live social discimination and feelings of otherness and outsiderness to appreciate the silliness of a "colorblind" society.

no matter how much my friends love and accept me, i am reminded on every social occasion, that i am different from them. and i live with that. and i am fine with that. but don't tell me for a minute that we're ever going to get to a "sexual orientation-blind" society.

it might not matter to you, but you don't have to live with it.

it will always matter to me.

the same goes for most social difference, especially those with historical legacies of discrimination and violence.

 

[Judah]

Ah, with U.S. politicians i lose track of who's the pot and who's the kettle and who's calling whom black...er, but maybe that's not the most apt metaphor.

Newt said something exactly the same in '94.

From http://thinkprogress.org/

“FLASHBACK: Gingrich Said Democrats Think They Run The Plantation

"Prodded by the right-wing, the media is already swarming around Sen. Hillary Clinton for saying the House of Representatives “has been run like a plantation…It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard.” MSNBC has already launched a poll: “Was Clinton’s ‘plantation’ comparison too harsh?”

"How long before the media mentions that Newt Gingrich, just before becoming Speaker of the House, made the same comparison in 1994:

"“I clearly fascinate them,” Gingrich said of the Democrats. “I’m much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I’m actually willing to lead the slave rebellion.” [Washington Post, 10/20/94]

"Don’t hold your breath."

 

[nbcrusader]

i am saying that the charge of comments being inappropriate when regard to race are every bit as much a playing of the race card as any comment made by Mrs. Clinton.
.
.
.

i am sick of hearing people wondering why race is brought into political discussion when it shouldn't matter.

race matters.

I guess I am focusing on the difference between the broad discussion of race (including racist comments and suggestions) and the necessary and constructive discussion of race (the part, I believe, that matters).

HRC's comments are not worth defending because they had no constructive element. Based on the description above, her audience apparently did not deem then constructive either.

It is wrong whether said by Clinton (and apparently, she's used this phrase before), Gingrich or Helms.

Fundamentally, the communications here in this thread and the comments of HRC are different. So I would not toss them both in the same basket of "playing the race card".

 

[verte76]

I never have liked Hillary. Warner '08!

Yeah! I'm ready to vote for him.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Has anyone else heard the tape?

The audience did not even react to the line. The silence speaks louder than words. They did not appreciate the comment either.

I'd like to hear it. Why does the article say "thunderous applause"?

Interesting that Newt Gingrich used the word plantation too

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

cnn.com has video

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/pla...cs/2006/01/17/evans.clinton.remarks.wabc.wabc

The other remarks had applause, not the plantation remark. Then they show Al Sharpton explaining and defending the plantation remark.

 

[deep]

Mrs. Bush also revealed that her IPod listening includes 'Stairway to Heaven.'

Back-masking

A long time ago, people used to use turntables in funny ways like to play records backwards. Well, this practice, known as "back-masking," isn't dead and gone in the digital age, as we hear from Marco Werman.

“I had a copy of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, and I heard that it says "here's to my sweet satan." So I brought up some software and put the song in there, cropped down to the part that was supposedly having this message, and flipped it around, and viola, I heard it.”
"Yes, you can hear the word "satan" in there several times."

http://www.theworld.org/globalhits/index.shtml

 

[Irvine511]

I guess I am focusing on the difference between the broad discussion of race (including racist comments and suggestions) and the necessary and constructive discussion of race (the part, I believe, that matters).

are you prepared to determine what is and what isn't a "constructive" discussion of race? what are the terms? will you set them before a discussion starts?

 

[deep]

anything that threatens our white power structure is bogus

some people should learn to be happy with what they have

 

[BonosSaint]

Dumb comment. The Senator is a panderer. When all is said and done, I don't see her being the nominee, but I don't think this will have anything to do with it. Prediction: minimal backlash except on talk radio where they will play it hundreds of times until the election. Embarassing moment. She'd be wise not to repeat it.

 

[nbcrusader]

are you prepared to determine what is and what isn't a "constructive" discussion of race? what are the terms? will you set them before a discussion starts?

I think we can come to agreement on that issue. Far better than leaving the open door "race matters" standard that accepts some bigotted speech.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060119...Cs4o..MwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Sen. Barack Obama and other black Democrats are defending Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's description of the House of Representatives as a "plantation." First lady Laura Bush says Clinton's remark was "ridiculous."

Clinton, D-N.Y., a potential presidential candidate for 2008, did not retreat from the "plantation" remark, telling reporters the term accurately describes the "top-down" way the GOP runs Congress.

Obama said Wednesday he felt her choice of words referred to a "consolidation of power" in Washington that squeezes out the voters.

The Illinois senator told CNN's "American Morning" he believed that Clinton was merely expressing concern that special interests play such a large role in writing legislation that "the ordinary voter and even members of Congress who aren't in the majority party don't have much input."

"There's been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House in which, if you are the ordinary voter, you don't have access," Obama said. "That should be a source of concern for all of us."

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks also defended Clinton.

"There was no race card played here. If any card was played here it was a joker, because that's who seems to be running the House right now if you look at the leadership," said Meeks, a black Democrat.

Obama, D-Ill., told ABC's "Good Morning America" that under GOP control in Washington, "what one has seen is the further concentration of power around a very narrow agenda that advantages the most powerful."

 

[nbcrusader]

Sen. Barack Obama and other black Democrats are defending

and

There was no race card played here.

right.....

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

CHOCOLATE CITY' SPRINKLED WITH NUTS
by Ann Coulter
January 19, 2006


So Hillary Clinton thinks the House of Representatives is being "run like a plantation." And, she added, "you know what I'm talking about."

First of all: Think about what a weird coincidence it is that Hillary would have made these remarks in a black church in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day. What are the odds? Did she even know it was a holiday? Bravely spoken, Senator. I haven't been this surprised since finding out Hollywood likes a movie about gay cowboys.

As Hillary explained, the House "has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."

Yes, that's what was really missing on plantations during the slavery era: the opportunity to present a contrary view. Gosh, if only the slaves had been allowed to call for cloture votes. What a difference that would have made!

Madam Hillary also said the Bush administration "will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country." While Hillary is certainly qualified to comment on what the all-time worst presidential administrations were, having had firsthand experience in one of them, I think she might want to avoid the phrase "go down in history."

All I can say is: It's a good thing we had a stealth candidate like Harriet Miers to tiptoe past these powerful, scary Democrats! Sorry if that sounds churlish, but after Judge Samuel Alito's magnificent performance last week, I think Republicans can stop being afraid of their shadows when it comes to our judicial nominees.

Ever since Bork, Republicans have been terrified of nominating candidates with something in their background that might possibly suggest the nominee did not get down on his knees (another phrase Hillary should avoid) and thank God for Roe v. Wade every night. That's how we ended up with mediocrities like David Hackett Souter and Anthony "Third Choice" Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

Besides being stunningly qualified, the characteristics of the current stellar Supreme Court nominee include these:

— His mother immediately told the press, "Of course he's against abortion."

— He had expressed support for the Reagan administration's positions on abortion in a 1985 memo.

— He refused to accede to the Democrats' endless browbeating and tell them that Roe was "settled law."

And the Democrats couldn't lay a finger on him. Sam Alito marks the final purging of the Bork experience.

All the Democrats could do was scream about his inactive membership — back in the '70s — in CAP, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which had a magazine called Prospect, which once ran an article, apparently satirical, complaining about Princeton admitting co-eds. In my mind, the only potentially disqualifying aspect of Alito's record was that he wasn't a more active member of CAP, a group opposed to quotas, set-asides and the lowering of academic standards at Princeton.

Then this week, we found out Sen. Teddy Kennedy still belongs to an organization that doesn't admit women. Oh — also, he killed a girl.

I'm fairly certain I've mentioned that before — I don't recall, Mr. Chairman — but I don't understand why everyone doesn't mention it every time Senator Drunkennedy has the audacity to talk about how "troubled" and "concerned" he is about this or that nominee. I bet Mary Jo was "troubled" and "concerned" about the senator leaving her in trapped in a car under water while he went back to the hotel to create an alibi.

It's not as if Democrats can say: OK, OK! The man paid a price! Let it go! He didn't pay a price. The Kopechne family paid a price. Kennedy weaved away scot-free.

But the Democrats are "troubled" about Sam Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton 30 years ago. If they're "concerned" about lifetime appointments for people with memberships in "troubling" organizations, wait until they hear about Bob Byrd! (Former Kleagle, Ku Klux Klan.)

They're a rotten bunch, these Democrats, and I'm happy to see an end to their reign of terror.

Now that Zell Miller is out of office, the only office-holding Democrat I like anymore is Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans. I had never heard of him until Hurricane Katrina, but after his "gaffe" this week, he's my favorite Democrat. I like a politician who casually spouts off insanely politically incorrect remarks in front of large audiences and TV cameras.

Nagin cheerfully told a crowd gathered for a Martin Luther King Day celebration that New Orleans would soon be "Chocolate City" again. I don't know who's supposed to be offended by that. I'm not. Perhaps all the white mayors who know they couldn't have said it. True, life's unfair. Oh well.

When it comes to choice-of-word crimes, I'd prefer detente to mutually assured destruction. Lead us off the chocolate plantation, Mayor Nagin!

 

[yolland]

Vanilla ice sprinkled with angel dust.