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Hil's Slip Is Showing (NY Daily News Slaps Hillary)
NY Daily News ^ | 1/18/06 | Michael Goodwin

Posted on 01/18/2006 6:33:43 AM PST by areafiftyone

With her bizarre claim that the House of Representatives is "run like a plantation," Sen. Hillary Clinton has turned a harsh spotlight on herself. Speculation is hot and heavy about why she made the inflammatory remark on the holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., especially when she has been taking steps toward the political center.

As with all things Clinton, the conventional wisdom is that the moment was calculated. Appearing with the Rev. Al Sharpton and other far-out Dems, this theory goes, she was feeding the crowd red meat to get its applause and Sharpton's approval. She obliged, and so did they.

It's a reasonable guess at her motive, but it's at least partly wrong. I don't think Clinton planned to use the word plantation because she didn't say it in her prepared remarks, according to my colleague David Saltonstall.

Instead, I think she panicked after a tough questioner said Democrats had been spineless and cited her record as an example. She was looking for an escape hatch and the race card was handy. She played it not because she remotely believes House rules are akin to slavery, but because she knew the word plantation would manipulate the black crowd and let her avoid explaining her support for the Iraq war.

Think of it as a cheap trick.

Of course, her panic is no excuse for rancid race-baiting. Indeed, it points up an even deeper problem with Clinton's "triangulation" strategy for her presidential run in 2008. All this zigzagging from left to right and back again on abortion, health care and national defense is supposed to make her look like a centrist.

It's just making her look confused.

At worse, it suggests she's having trouble figuring out who she is. And if she doesn't know who she is, how are the rest of us supposed to?

John Kerry demonstrated that an identity crisis can be fatal in 2004 when he gave the Bush team enough ammo to make the flip-flop charge stick. Kerry should have won, but his muddled stance on Iraq, terrorism and pretty much everything else allowed the GOP to paint him as unprincipled and unreliable.

Al Gore had the same problem in 2000. Remember those reports of his hiring a consultant to tell him how to dress like an alpha male?

Clinton is flirting with the same problem. Part of the reason is that she keeps her more moderate and leftist tendencies segregated from each other. The result is that she often seems to be two different people instead of one person with a principled coherence.

I've written about her habit of saying things that are, in substance, as radical as a Howard Dean rant. But she doesn't say those things in front of mixed audiences. Her most strident attacks on Bush come at Democratic fund-raisers. The next day, she'll talk publicly about the need for bipartisanship while she poses with a Newt Gingrich.

Then there's the race issue. Last September, she stood mute as Rep. Charles Rangel called Bush "our Bull Connor." The reference to the Alabama police boss of 1960s infamy was below the belt, but Clinton uttered not a peep of protest. It would be nice to ask her what she really thinks about such things, but our senator rarely grants on-the-record interviews to New York journalists. Maybe she's trying to decide who she is.

Or maybe she's afraid some of us already know.

Originally published on January 18, 2006


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: gopplantation; hillary; plantation; umhumgurl
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Sorry but I don't buy it. That woman knew EXACTLY what she was saying. She's a race baiter and nothing more. Whenever a Democrat politician goes into a black church the first thing they do is play the race card against the Republicans. She's done it before and she will do it again.
1 posted on 01/18/2006 6:33:44 AM PST by areafiftyone
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To: areafiftyone

The democrats know that blacks are considering other political options, and she need them to win the presidency.

She has to scare them and/or use terms that make them feel she understands their plight.


2 posted on 01/18/2006 6:36:24 AM PST by Preachin' (Enoch's testimony was that he pleased God: Why are we still here?)
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To: areafiftyone

Sen. Clinton will never be elected president. Not because she's a race-baiter(which she is), nor a lightweight(which she is), but because she simply is not likeable. Her unfavorable numbers, even before her comments on MLK day, were huge. I suspect those numbers will go even higher now.


3 posted on 01/18/2006 6:36:46 AM PST by RexBeach ("There is no substitute for victory." -Douglas MacArthur)
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To: areafiftyone
I don't think Clinton planned to use the word plantation because she didn't say it in her prepared remarks, according to my colleague David Saltonstall. Instead, I think she panicked after a tough questioner said Democrats had been spineless and cited her record as an example. She was looking for an escape hatch and the race card was handy.

------------------ sounds right.

4 posted on 01/18/2006 6:37:17 AM PST by beyond the sea (Cal Thomas: If only Robert Bork had cried ...................)
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To: areafiftyone

More telling than her "run like a plantation" comment was her following it with "you know what I'm sayin'" in an Oprah-esque voice.

She was trying to gain some insider traction for being married to "the first black president".

It was disgusting.


5 posted on 01/18/2006 6:37:29 AM PST by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: areafiftyone

one wonder why a church like that remains tax exempt.


6 posted on 01/18/2006 6:37:49 AM PST by camle (keep your mind open and somebody will fill it full of something for you.)
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To: camle

You would be surprised how many of them there are.


7 posted on 01/18/2006 6:38:30 AM PST by areafiftyone (Politicians Are Like Diapers, Both Need To Be Changed Often And For The Same Reason!)
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To: areafiftyone
At worse, it suggests she's having trouble figuring out who she is.

Julia Gorin knows who she is.

Who, in the course of a lifetime, hasn't encountered—somewhere, sometime, somehow— a Hillary Clinton in one form or another? She's a type, a mold, a case study. It's the Compulsively Lying Psychobroad-Striver-Whose-Ambitions-are-Ahead-of-her-Talents Phenomenon.

Julia Gorin – http://jewishworldreview.com/julia/gorin081505.php3

***

8 posted on 01/18/2006 6:39:41 AM PST by beyond the sea (Cal Thomas: If only Robert Bork had cried ...................)
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To: areafiftyone

had that been a republican speaker the IRS would have had a "response to the scene" time that would be the envy of any fire department.


9 posted on 01/18/2006 6:41:14 AM PST by camle (keep your mind open and somebody will fill it full of something for you.)
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To: areafiftyone
Sorry but I don't buy it.

I don't, either. This isn't a slap. It's a plea for her to stop screwing up.

Smartest woman in America...

Bwah hah hah hah hah...If the wench can't take the heat now, can you imagine what she'll do during the real campaign silly season?

Run, Hillie, run!!

10 posted on 01/18/2006 6:41:33 AM PST by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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To: RexBeach
Sen. Clinton will never be elected president. Not because she's a race-baiter(which she is), nor a lightweight(which she is), but because she simply is not likeable.

She IS unlikeable, to say the least, but, you must remember, it matters how many voters ever GET TO KNOW THAT.

The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.

Huxley: “ The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth." — Old Media lives these words.

11 posted on 01/18/2006 6:42:11 AM PST by beyond the sea (Cal Thomas: If only Robert Bork had cried ...................)
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To: camle
one wonder why a church like that remains tax exempt

You can't target "black" churches. Only "white" churches.


12 posted on 01/18/2006 6:42:23 AM PST by unixfox (AMERICA - 20 Million ILLEGALS Can't Be Wrong!)
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To: RexBeach
Sen. Clinton will never be elected president.

I totally agree. In fact, she may not even retain her Senate seat.

13 posted on 01/18/2006 6:42:39 AM PST by freeperfromnj
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To: Preachin'

Get ready for the "Bush is stealing the Social Security checks of Seniors" schpiel from her holiness.


14 posted on 01/18/2006 6:42:42 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz ("We don't need POLITICIANS...we need STATESMEN.")
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To: areafiftyone
At worse, it suggests she's having trouble figuring out who she is. And if she doesn't know who she is, how are the rest of us supposed to?

Clinton is flirting with the same problem. Part of the reason is that she keeps her more moderate and leftist tendencies segregated from each other. The result is that she often seems to be two different people instead of one person with a principled coherence.

The commercials on her during the election cycle ought to be interesting to be sure.

15 posted on 01/18/2006 6:42:48 AM PST by Fruitbat
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To: areafiftyone

>>>>Remember those reports of his hiring a consultant to tell him how to dress like an alpha male?

Clinton is flirting with the same problem.


Did this really get checked by an editor?


16 posted on 01/18/2006 6:44:07 AM PST by .cnI redruM (Shame, not sanctions - UN policy on Iran)
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To: areafiftyone

Clinton is dealing with political reality. About one in every three Dem voters is either black or hispanic. She cannot win without a large black turnout. If she can lock up the black vote for the Dem primaries, Hillary will coast in. She won't be the only Dem playing the race card once the election season begins in earnest.


17 posted on 01/18/2006 6:46:00 AM PST by kabar
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To: areafiftyone
That woman knew EXACTLY what she was saying.

Au contraire, mon ami.

(Some French lingo to prove I bear no prejudice against frogs.)

Hillary Clinton, like her (Red) star-crossed fictional husband Billy Jeff, is one of the most ignorant and mentally unstable politicians to waddle across the political stage in decades. I realize that's saying a lot because most of the Democrats, as well as many Republicrats, are stupid and have one-track minds.

I, like many others, have studied this "smartest woman in the world" and have found her to be a prime candidate for a frontal lobotomy. Her nominal husband is a close runner up.

She is a pontificating simpleton whose sentences and paragraphs are convoluted to the point of sophomoric. To listen to her is to suffer.

Like Teddy if one of her staffers (mostly lesbians and assorted pond scum) decided to mutiny and shove something in her direction to be read from the senate floor that was satirical and foolish, she'd probably read it with a frown on her face.

It's great fun to watch her standing by while another of her evil cohorts is speaking and see her head bobbing up and down continuously like one of those plastic birds that you place on the edge of a glass of water.

18 posted on 01/18/2006 6:46:32 AM PST by FerdieMurphy (For English, Press One. (Tookie, you won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Oh, too late.))
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To: areafiftyone

Agree, there's no need to speculate why she did it. The dems will not skip any opportunity to race bait.


19 posted on 01/18/2006 6:48:47 AM PST by bigsigh
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To: areafiftyone
I love to drag this New York Post article out every now and then:

Hill's History Lesson Has No Basis In Truth
Friday,October 13,2000
By ANDREA PEYSER

HILLARY Rodham Clinton, who is fond of lecturing about African-American history, may need a refresher course in the Truth.

Sojourner Truth, that is.

A black-oriented monthly newspaper is demanding an apology for a speech Clinton delivered last month in a Brooklyn church, in which she apparently confused the evangelist Truth with Harriet Tubman - the woman who led slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad as "the Moses of her people."

The mangled facts are described as an insult on par with telling a veterans group about "our first president, John Quincy Adams," said an editorial in the October issue of Our Time Press.

As of yesterday, Clinton had not responded.

On Sept. 10, Clinton delivered a speech at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights. Flanked by politicians and fans, she complained about the paucity of black-history education.

"I don't think our children get to hear enough about many of the important people in our history," the black press quoted her as saying.

"I really hope our children learn about Sojourner Truth ... because she did stand for truth and she did sojourn in difficult places time and time again."

Then, as puzzled observers listened politely, Clinton described Truth's "escape" from slavery - and her efforts to guide others to freedom.

"It was a terrible journey. She went through swamps, she was chased by dogs. She was shot at ... And she found her way to freedom, here in New York eventually."

Clinton said she "turned around and she went back. She would send out the word to the plantations that she was coming back. And if people could get there, break free or in the trees or on the side of their swamp, she would be there."

This came as a surprise to those who know that Truth, born a slave, did not escape from bondage.

"It just caught my attention immediately - and it pretty much set me off," said Our Time publisher David Greaves, whose angry editorial is headlined, "Candidate Clinton Trips Over American History."

As Greaves knew, Truth did not come from a Southern plantation, but from upstate Kingston - here in Hillary's adopted state - according to "Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia" (Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1993).

After she was emancipated in accordance with state law in 1827, Truth became an itinerant preacher, feminist and abolitionist famous for challenging 19th-century prejudices about black humanity and femininity with the statement, "Ain't I a woman?"

Truth is revered for helping to lead the call for the end of slavery. But she has never been credited with guiding slaves' escape.

That credit goes to Harriet Ross Tubman.

In 1849, Tubman escaped from a Maryland plantation. She then made at least 15 daring and heroic trips down South, repeatedly risking her life to rescue slaves.

Hillary's gaffe surprised observers who say she often lectures about black heroines without mixing them up.

Democratic Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., who heard Clinton speak, was charitable about her factual foul-up.

"Her basic theme was, 'We have to look forward, while helping others,'" said Norman, son of the church's pastor, Clarence Norman Sr.

But one congregant told me the church was quietly buzzing over the mistake.

Greaves' editorial was less understanding. "Instead of the intended pandering, Hillary's writers put her foot in her mouth," he wrote.

"Had she spoken at a synagogue saying, 'One of my greatest heroines is Israel's first president, Golda Meir,' she would not have gotten far into David Ben-Gurion's biography without there being an indication from the assembled that the first lady did not have a clue as to what she was talking about."

Another black-oriented newspaper, The Daily Challenge, printed a lengthy excerpt from Hillary's speech, errors intact. Editor Dawad Philip said he found Hillary's booboo "less harmful than the people in this town who have it right, and still have policies that destroy us."

Philip said the paper was considering addressing Hillary's mistake.

Hillary enjoys tremendous support among African-Americans - the latest Zogby poll gauges it at around 95 percent - which may help explain her gentle treatment in Crown Heights.

At a time when candidates are taken to task for goofs big and small - getting the voting age wrong, misstating the cost of a dog's arthritis medicine - Clinton may feel compelled to explain.

Greaves, whose paper has supported Clinton, asks that she include "an apology and correction in the blizzard of public relations faxes coming daily from the Hillary 2000 press office."

-----------------------------

How ignorant is Hillary in not taking the time to know the history of the person you are speaking about? She got a pass on this in 2000. Chances are she'll get a pass this time as well. Fox & Friends this morning reported that the NAACP and the Urban League are refusing to comment on her "plantation" comments.

I have a dream...

20 posted on 01/18/2006 6:49:11 AM PST by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway~~John Wayne)
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