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Hillary Clinton Blasts GOP 'Plantation'
NEW YORK -- Sounding a little like a preacher, a fired-up Sen. Hillary Clinton lambasted the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, predicting the presidency "will go down in history as one of the worst" and saying the House of Representatives is run like a "plantation" where dissenting voices are squelched. "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. "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." Speaking to a group of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the audience, Clinton offered an apology "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause. "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."
Story Continues Below Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, reached by telephone, responded to Clinton's remarks by saying, "On a day when Americans are focused on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Hillary Clinton is focused on the legacy of Hillary Clinton." A spokeswoman for the White House declined to comment and referred questions to the RNC. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who organized the Monday event, said Clinton's comments were important to her primarily black audience. "It was significant to us that she did it at our forum on Martin Luther King Day and in many ways said what a lot of us have been saying a long time about the Bush administration," Sharpton said. Clinton was joined at the event by a host of elected officials and some others looking to be elected officials. Other speakers included Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer and the man considering a run against him in the primary, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. Republican state attorney general candidate Jeanine Pirro attended, as did Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a number of City Council members. Actor and activist Harry Belafonte made a late, but extremely well-received, entrance. Bloomberg, who spoke and left before Clinton's remarks, noted that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the King holiday and said it was vital that King's message remain alive. "We must not let the real man or his message recede into history," Bloomberg said. "Sadly, that's something that often happens, and our heroes and the fathers of our nation have to be people that we constantly tell our children about so they understand the sacrifices that were made." © 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note:
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