If Hillary Clinton’s goal was to get some ink in saying that the Senate was like a plantation, then it was a really smart thing to say. If, on the other hand, she was trying to draw a remotely accurate metaphor, I don’t think that was the way to go.
Her representatives have tried to justify it by saying that the Senate is being run by the Bossman and opposing views are stifled. Yeah, okay, but that also describes any number of corporations. No one is in the Congress or Senate against their will, no one is being beaten, and no one is being hunted down if they leave. There’s just way too much baggage attached to the concept of plantations to try and pare it down to, “Our attempts to present our views are being stifled.” I mean, she could just as easily address the UJA and say the Senate is like a concentration camp, and it would be just as questionable.
If she’d wanted to be clever, she could have said, “I’m not saying the Senate is like, say, a plantation. Not at all. I mean, yes, Democrats are being given no more respect by Republicans than the Bossman gave his workers, and we have about as much input into the way things are being done. And it can be certainly stated that the Senate is giving little to no attention to the needs of its black constituents. But it’s definitely NOT like a plantation…yet.” That makes it slightly harded for critics to come back and say, “So you’re saying the Senate is like a plantation?!” to which she replies, “Uh, no, I said it isn’t like one. Are you reading impaired?”
Now the Mayor of New Orleans, on the other hand…what the hëll is up with THAT guy? I mean, geez, if the mayor of a mostly white city that had been wiped out by a tornado said it was punishment from God because they’d let blacks in, and this was a message that it should be exclusively a white city, the guy would be hung out to dry. So what’s this “New Orleans needs to be chocolate again.” Okay, yeah, he’s been under some stress, but holy crap. I have to think there’s plenty of black constituents who have–if nothing else–made plenty of money off white tourists who are saying, “Shut the hëll up!”
PAD
• 
The Mayor of New Orleans is nuts, but will he be held to the same standard as a white guy saying the same thing? Bigot and hipocrite!! His city had a MLK day march in which shots were fired into the crowd. He needs to go, but will anyone call for that?
I loved Nagin’s explanation today. He said he was referring to making hot chocolate by mixing dark chocolate with milk, so he was trying to say he wanted a multiculturation city again.
Yeah, right.
As for Hillary, that was also a dopey thing to say, but I think the reason she didn’t give the expanded comparison you described is because it wouldn’t have made a good sound bite. And that’s what politics is all about these days.
What is it about MLK day that makes politicians try outdo themselves in making the most idiotic comparisons to civil rights and slavery?
As for people calling for Nagin to leave, I’d say that the odds are against him getting another term anyway, but then again, Marion Barry is still on the Washington D.C. city council.
I mean, if you can still get elected after being videotaped smoking crack, bungling a major disaster can’t hurt you that much.
Hey, we’re all some kind of chocolate: White, Dark, Milk, Bitter, Sweet….uh, Bakers….ummm, cocoa…Swiss….
Granted, White Chocolate isn’t cocoa based, so it’s not real chocolate at all.
I can see what Nagin was maybe meaning to say…that, with all the talk about rebuilding NO without it’s colored base, someone needs to say that, if you lived in NO before, and you want to come back, we’ll have a place for you. And since NO was like 80% black, it stands to reason that a good percentage of those returning should, just by the numbers, also be black.
But I’d think that, just as PAD interjects for Hilary, there was a much, much better way of saying this. I mean, even the term, chocolate: I’ve heard it used derogatorily for a white/black mix. Or heard it applied to just “light” blacks, again, occasionally derogotorily.
And if Nagin really thinks that God sent the hurricanes at NO because He was mad…does it really make sense to rebuild the city, aiming for a “just the way it was” goal? I mean, if God’s sending you portents and signs about not doing something, do you really want to keep trying to do that thing? You’re just asking to get Caddyshacked.
In fairness to Nagin, he had the good sense to apologize today, instead of letting it fester.
Chocolate milk? Jeeze….I’m surprised he didn’t try to claim that he was merely trying to show that a black man can be just as stupid as a white one by doing a Pat Robertson.
The most distressing thing about the Hillary speech? That a good chunk of the crowd apparently called for Tawana Brawley lawyer Alton Maddox’s to be allowed to practice law again. Hillary should have taken the opportunity for her own little Sisteh Soulja Moment and tolf thme there was no way anyone with a sense of right and wrong would want anything of the kind. With Al Sharpton standing right next to her it would have been gold.
mmmmmm……chocolate.
Since when does a sense of right and wrong have anything to do with practicing law?
Ba Dum Bum.
Peter David: If Hillary Clinton’s goal was to get some ink in saying that the Senate was like a plantation, then it was a really smart thing to say. If, on the other hand, she was trying to draw a remotely accurate metaphor, I don’t think that was the way to go.
Luigi Novi: Well, obviously, Peter, you have a liberal bias against all Republicans, as this statement clearly shows.
Just kidding.
But I’m curious as to whether some of the more trollish posters that have visited this site would have (or will) say something along those lines. (You know, kinda like how you could defend McFarlane after that “doctor” complained about that issue of Spawn on A Current Affair ). I wonder if my having pre-emptively made this statement will actually preclude or predict others so inclined from doing so.
Seriously, I am quite sick and tired of idiots using such out-of-scale metaphors, as when people on both sides of the political aisle compare whatever current President they don’t like to Hitler (as they did to Clinton, and as they current do with W.) Comparing Congress to plantations is similarly indicative of a total inability to grasp things like scale, or to draw important distinctions between totally disaparate things.
Ack. The parenthetical sentence above was supposed to end with “…yet still be accused of having it in for Image.”
“You know, kinda like how you could defend McFarlane after that “doctor” complained about that issue of Spawn on A Current Affair”
Okay, jog my memory, because I don’t know what you’re referring to.
PAD
Then again, here’s what Newt Gingrich had to say on the topic:
“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]
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/17/gingrich-plantation/
Frankly, I was mystified why Hillary’s advisors suggested/acquiesced regarding such a statement that was obviously both wild hyperbole and unabashed pandering.
If I were one of Hillary’s handlers, I’d tell her she had better stick to the high road if she ever wants to live in the White House again.
Someone with presidential aspirations should know better than to throw around slavery comparisons so lightly. Is she that unschooled regarding U.S. history? It almost reminds me of the goofballs who, in the past few years, have been comparing life in the U.S. today to life in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. People ought to pick up a history book or two before they start babbling about how horrid things are today. Geez Louise! Is our society that spoiled these days that we’ve sunk to comparing molehills to mountains???
Ummm … Chocolate, food … of … the … gods.
(It seems there is a Homer quote for every occasion.)
Okay, jog my memory, because I don’t know what you’re referring to.
Luigi Novi: I was referring to the fact how you had been accused ad hominem of having some bias against Image, despite numerous indicators to the contrary, and how you commented, at the end of the BID column in whch you defended the issue of Spawn that featured a story with racism-related themes (and a cover of the eponymous character hanging from a noose) from the “Doctor” who complained about it on A Current Affair, how you you’d just love to see how the Ad Hominers would spin it into arguing that you had it in for Todd.
Given how you criticized Hilary and Nagin in this blog entry, it would be interesting to see if visitors continue attacking you for your supposed liberal bias, either in this blog’s Replies, or in the future.
Well, you could have a liberal bias and still have the good sense to know stupidity when you see it. I lean conservative more often than not but I’ll happily point out that Robertson/Santorum/Gingrich are schmucks.
Hillary puzzles the hëll out of me. I’ve been saying for over a year now that she has the nomination locked up, that it will almost be pointless for anyone to even try to take her on…but most of my liberal and Democratic party friends say I’m crazy to think so, that she is way too polarizing to have a chance. Things like this make me think they are correct. (though, in my defense, did this gaffe cost her anything? The people who would have the most reason to be offended don’t seem at all upset. If she can capture the vast majority of the black vote and the feminist vote and the people who loved the last time there was a Clinton in the White House, isn’t that at least enough for the nomination???)
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Gore’s MLK speech. He managed to dovetail the government’s surveilence of King to W’s current surveilence fetish quite nicely into each other.
Shame we didn’t have this Gore in 2000.
I was already disappointed to read Senator Clinton’s quote before Bill Leisner pointed out that she’s borrowing analogies from Newt Gingrich. If we New Yorkers really wanted a senator to embarass us nationally, we would’ve kept Alphonse ….
I mean, if you can still get elected after being videotaped smoking crack, bungling a major disaster can’t hurt you that much.
Not to mention his recent drug test failure.
It’s a great move to tar plantation owners who are wealthy powerful people. Just like the Senate.
It’ll play well when she campaigns in certain parts of the South and folk say, “Oh she’s the one that called us racists.”
Just for the sake of accuracy, Hillary didn’t say the Senate was run like a plantation.
She said the House of Representatives was. The comparison is very marginally more apt with that subject, but that basically means it’s extremely inappropriate rather than horrifically inappropriate.
Hill’s appropriating old Gingrich metaphors? Color me not especially surprised.
Bah.
TWL
Watching all the major news channels at once today(Sometimes it’s cool to work in TV) and between all three of the big newsmaking speeches, I just had to sit there between races and think, “Man, I remember when to understand what someone meant when making a speech, all you had to do was, y’know, listen to the speech.” Kinda sad that on Benjamin Franklin’s birthday hear about speeches that A) Are just plain innapropriate and B) Need to be explained later. At least with Franklin, you got one or the other…
How big a jáçkášš is Nagin?Of course on the good side we can at least rest knowing asinine statements know no racial boundaries.
Hey did anyone check? Maybe Pat Robertson was using a jedi mind trick thingie to speak thru him.!!Ok I aint buying it either just thoughtbI would give a brotha a way out…..Oh well.
The sad part is people will let it go and say he is doing great job and probably reelect him as mayor and then as governor of Louisiana
I think that what she said taken with the where and when all adds up to typical political grandstanding.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10889047/
“Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton 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.”
Gingrich could have done so much more. He had the skills and the ideas, but he never could master the media. Gingrich may have been a partisan, but he wasn’t in love with the perks of power the same way the current GOP Congressional leaders are (Abramoff).
Gingrich didn’t have the personal qualities required. He gave his enemies all the ammunition they needed to bring him down. Republicans can complain all they want that he got worse treatment than a Democrat would have but so what? If you let people get away with murder you’ll end up with murderers.
And for all his supposed skills, he botched the budget showdown with Clinton badly. I’ve always found his supposed brilliance overrated. He wowed the reporters but that doesn’t take much. This talk of him running for president is a joke, though not as funny a one as the one about Tom Daschle running.
what the hëll happend to PAD I agree with him
Hilary is hardly the first person to use “plantation” in this way.
A caseload of Republicans have referred to the Democratic party as “plantation”.
(from dailykos.com)
Townhall.com
The National Review
The Wall Street Journal
Rush Limbaugh Show
Newsmax
The Washington Times
Bob Novak
“Hilary is hardly the first person to use “plantation” in this way.
A caseload of Republicans have referred to the Democratic party as “plantation”.”
A) I don’t let my kids use this justification, and I won’t accept it out of my politicians. “They said/did it first!” is no longer acceptable adult behavior.
B) There is a big difference between talking heads making statements, and Senators of the US. In addition, “Plantation” might be a valid comparison if you’re talking about racism, or people “Trapped” in a lifestyle. It’s not a good comparison for a bunch of rich, white, old limosine driving politicians.
C) I’m really dispointed in Clinton. She has been playing politics excellently the past year, doing a tremendous job of positioning herself for a 2008 run, without pushing herself to the far, far left, and without piling on the anti-Dubya band wagon. It was looking for a while like she was going to be running “For” something, rather than “against” something. It will be interesting to see how she continues at this point.
Jerry, I have to disagree with you here. Those rich white politicians would be RIDING, in the limos, not driving them. ; )
He gave his enemies all the ammunition they needed to bring him down.
Well, cheating on your wife after trying to bring down a president who did the same thing can do that to one’s career. 🙂
Too many politicians and people elsewhere prefer a good if careless metaphor or a phrase with an emotional punch over accuracy and commonsense. All too often they get caught up in their own imagery.
What’s really offensive isn’t so much that she called the House a plantation, it’s that she seems to be implying that House Democrats are analagous to the slaves.
A post by Ms Huffington made me reconsider the cleverness of Hillary’s comment. Huffington compared the speeches that Clinton and Gore made and used it to say that Al Gore has much more of a fire in the belly while Hillary comes off like a Senator, too afraid to go for the jugular. I think she may be on to something, but she made the completely wrong conclusion. Hillary totally knocked Al off the public radar. Al all but called for Bush to be tarred and feathered but the plantation remark is all that anyone is talking about.
Coincidence? Or are we witnessing a level of political skill that will sweep an “unelectable” politician to a surprisingly easy victory?
RE: Mayor Nagin
He’s coming up for re-election. I theorize that he views blacks as his voter base and wants more blacks to return to strengthen his chances of being re-elected. What can I say? I have a low opinion of politicians.
As for Senator Clinton… Yep, poor use of verbage. Of course, as a result of my aforementioned opinion of politicians, I’m not the least bit suprised that she would say such a thing. Politicians pander. That’s the cheif qualification for being a politician. Posibly tied with taking bribes.
Coincidence? Or are we witnessing a level of political skill that will sweep an “unelectable” politician to a surprisingly easy victory?
I’m not sure either way.
You’d think Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be stupid to make such a comparison, knowing the questions it would raise.
But it’s pretty frickin sad that what you said is true, Bill: Gore makes a great speech, but is overshadowed by a single comment Clinton makes (although I think they were both overshadowed by Nagin’s comments).
It’s also funny to mention the whole “Clinton comes off sounding like a Senator”. Which, of course, was Gore’s problem when running for President as well – he was a Senator, then ran the Senate as VP.
Such comments haven’t come up since the last election, but some mentioned the fact that Senators have been losing the presidential elections (Kerry, Gore, Dole), while governors are winning them (Bush Jr, Clinton, Reagan). So, recent history may be against Hillary Clinton anyways.
Interestingly enough, Obama is supported Clinton:
(Obama) 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.”
(He) also 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.”
Slavery, and it’s connected references, is one of those discussion hot-buttons that makes it hard to use in a debate. It’s like bringing up Hitler or Nazi Germany…there are so many strong negative feelings connected to the topic, that they tend to overwhelm the logical point or analogy trying to be made.
Obama’s first point may be correct. His second comment certainly sounds correct. The Wendy’s Chili Finger couple were just sentenced…9 years each for trying to defraud Wendy’s. What convictions and sentences have been handed out to CEO’s that defraud employee retirement funds? Or cook accounting books to defraud investors? I don’t recall off-hand, but it seems to me that it was shorter than 9 years, when convictions are reached at all.
This government is becoming a concentration of power around the rich and powerful, ensuring not only that they keep a bigger portion of what they have than the common person, but also that it’s harder for them to screw up and lose their stuff.
PAD,
Could not have said it better myself on either issue. (Hopefully the world will not now come to an end since we actually agree on a political issue!)
If you are lucky, Pat Robertson will quit apologizing for his last remark and come up with another one. Even if he is a nobody with no true influence, he seems to get equal press anyways, so might as well use it for something useful.
Iowa Jim
Well…
Ex-Tyco CEO Kozlowski faces 15-30 years.
Ex-WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers got 25 years.
9 doesn’t sound to bad. What they did was not okay just because it was a corporation they attempted to defraud. If you cheat a corporation, that hurts emplyees (and not just evil CEOs).
“A caseload of Republicans have referred to the Democratic party as ‘plantation’.”
Haven’t you heard? IOKIARDI.
–R.J.
Iowa Jim, the problem with Pat Robertson is he ISN’T a nobody. A lot of people watch him, hear him, and say, “Ðámņ, that sounds good!! Yeah! That’s how I feel!” And then they go out into public and act like, well, I’m feeling generous tonight, not-nice people. And for every Pat Robertson on TV, there’s a BUNCH more in groups all over the country. Although he’s good fodder for wisecracks(guilty myself of a shipload) point is, he gets taken WAY too seriously by a lot of people. And that’s what scares the hëll out of me.
I don’t know, Rat, from an earlier thread it doesn’t look like he really gets the ratings that people think he does. His public profile is higher than his actual influence probably warrants.
At any rate, there are way scarier people out there. Check out the president of Iran; imagine a less sane Pat Robertson. Soon with nukes.
“A caseload of Republicans have referred to the Democratic party as ‘plantation’.”
The Repubs have used it in the context that Demos expect black Americans to vote for them because they give them money for whatever.
Mrs William Jefferson Clinton used the word “plantation” to infer that the Repubs are slave masters.
It’s all political games.
Ah, so, shokingly, “It’s OK if a Republican does it” is your stance.
Pardon me while I pick myself off the floor.
You’d really think I’d have a thicker skin for partisan BS by now…
Pat Robertson has no influence? They’re running some kind of telethon there (at least they were today). Tune in and see how much money this “nobody” is making.
And of course Gore’s reasoned and correct remarks were submarined by Hilary’s gross exaggeration. That’s the “liberal” media, huh? Yeah, right.
At any rate, there are way scarier people out there. Check out the president of Iran; imagine a less sane Pat Robertson. Soon with nukes.
I’ll give you one even better:
With our latest little unmanned drone bombing to try and get al-Zawahiri (and doing nothing more than killing civilians in the process), this time in Pakistan, we (our wonderfully stupid government) may be running the risk of encouraging the people to revolt against the Pakistani government.
And as Ted Rall points out so nicely in his latest column, lest we forget: we are pushing the possibility of “the first civil war in a nuclear power.”
Ok, let’s define influence. Name me one issue that Pat has changed in recent history. Dobson? Probably. Falwell, perhaps. Pat Robertson? Not anything that was not already championed by someone more mainstream in Christian circles.
I know there are a few who listen to Robertson, but to say he has any real influence is a joke. But if you want to waste your time worrying about him, go right ahead.
Iowa Jim
Pat Robertson has no influence? They’re running some kind of telethon there (at least they were today). Tune in and see how much money this “nobody” is making.
Didn’t say he was a “nobody”; we wouldn’t be talking about him if he were. My point was that his viewership seems to be measured in the hundreds of thousands; impressive on it’s face but less so when taken in the context of a country of 300 million.
In terms of influence I’d rate him lower than Al Sharpton, who I also think is a joke. At least Al can actually get a march going. If Pat called for a march on the PA county that just threw out intelligent design what would happen? I’m guessing not much, which is why he doesn’t do it.
As for Al Gore being “reasoned and correct”…well, different strokes and all. Me, I think the last 6 years have driven him perilously close to the brink of a nervous breakdown. The red meat appeals to the base but if he runs (and I think he will) he’d better tone it down, lest he frighten small children.
With our latest little unmanned drone bombing to try and get al-Zawahiri (and doing nothing more than killing civilians in the process)
If by civilian you mean former terror camp commander Abu Khabab al-Masri, who was al-Qaeda’s chief bomb maker, Khaled al-Harbi who was al-Qaeda’s operational commander in Pakistan and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, who is thought to be al-Qaeda’s commander in Pakistan Afghanistan, yeah, it accomplished nothing.
Frankly, that’s the sort of “nothing” I’d like to see more of, despite the sad loss of civilian life that is inevitable in war.
At least she said SOMETHING. At this point I barely care about the context. Lets put on a Hilary/Gore Ticket and see where it leads.
I would prefer a Hilary/McCain ticket though. Get rid of the labels and show a solid interest in our domestic issues.
Turn the war machine off for a decade or 3 and invest in us.
I would prefer a Hilary/McCain ticket though. Get rid of the labels and show a solid interest in our domestic issues. Turn the war machine off for a decade or 3 and invest in us.
With two of the biggest supporters of the Iraq War??? I’m sorry, I can see supporting either of the two or both but not for that reason.
Personally I think that Hillary could well be one of the toughest Presidents ever when it comes to the use of miltary force–which is not a disqualifier in my book but those who are opposed to military actions might want to keep it in mind.
If by civilian you mean former terror camp commander Abu Khabab al-Masri, who was al-Qaeda’s chief bomb maker, Khaled al-Harbi who was al-Qaeda’s operational commander in Pakistan and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, who is thought to be al-Qaeda’s commander in Pakistan Afghanistan, yeah, it accomplished nothing.
Well, there’s alot of the problem: people we *think* to be doing this or that, the thought that we *believe* we’ve killed somebody of importance.
Frankly, that’s the sort of “nothing” I’d like to see more of, despite the sad loss of civilian life that is inevitable in war.
Well, it’s always good to know that the unknown numbers of civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now those in Pakistan, mean so little to the rest of the world.
It’s also good to see that the thought of a civil war in a nuclear nation doesn’t phase you in the least. Perish the thought that this could generate that doomsday “dirty bomb” scenario that the Bush Administration has been harping about since 9/11, encouraging Bush to act like King George.
But I’m sure more spying on Americans, rendition, and torture will just make it all go away.