Hillary's Plantation

by Shelby Steele - January 23rd, 2006 - Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal)

Hillary Clinton reveals her fear of Condi Rice.

Of course Hillary Clinton's recent claim that Republicans run the House of Representatives like a "plantation" was old-fashioned political and racial pandering. After all, she uttered this remark at what certainly would have been a prime venue for her husband: a largely black audience on Martin Luther King Day. So, clearly, she was looking to connect with this most loyal Democratic constituency. But Mrs. Clinton is possessed of a tin ear precisely where her husband is all deftness and charm. Black audiences are beyond her. The room of black faces that brings her husband alive, freezes her in overbearing rectitude.

I am very interested in one thing . . . . how do we turn this into progress in the race relations in this nation. Any continuation of the current situation where race baiters in the democratic party (especially liberal black leaders) call anyone who does not pander to blacks a racist, is simply intolerable.