Plantations

Last night on the Factor, O'Reilly asked Al Sharpton what his response would be if Trent Lott had made a plantation comment like Hillary's. Sharpton said he wouldn't care. O'Reilly didn't seem to believe him. But Sharpton was right. Because he didn't. O'Reilly didn't realize that Trent really had made such a remark:

"As a matter of fact, for 40 years they're [the Democrats are] the ones that held them down. They're the ones that kept them on the plantation of welfare." - Trent Lott, July 16, 2000

This whole episode, the marketing of Hillary's remarks, disappoints me. because I would love it if the media would stop doing this. We need a media that compares policies, and that reports real issues, more significant news on slow days.

I'm not really interested in bashing Bush because he says "nookyalar." Or Nagin for saying "chocolate." Or Hillary, for calling the house a "plantation." Or all those other people that said "plantation." Who cares?

It's a non-issue. "Frivolous" is a good word for it.

What are the pols' ideas about policies and issues? Why are they wrong or right? The media have a hard time ever getting around to doing this. Or to distinguishing between moments such as these, and real news that actually affects most people.

But, uh, if anyone out there really is interested in some of the many times right-wing pundits have made tasteless plantation comparisons, which went largely ignored by the press, well, here ya go:

"I would call the Democratic alternative the "plantation society." The "plantation society" is characterized by a wealthy class of owners who want to limit the choices, opportunities and freedom of working-class Americans." - Star Parker, Townhall.com, 03/22/05

"We have two dynamics going on here. White liberals don't want blacks and Hispanics to succeed in America. They want to keep them on the plantation." - Jesse Lee Peterson, February 1, 2005

"Where would the Democrats be if they're not picking up around 90 percent of the black vote? What if black voters started moving off the Democratic plantation?" - Robert Novak, CNN Crossfire 01/25/05

"In the end, you've got to ask yourself, why Scalia, good, Thomas, bad in the eyes of a man like Reid. I say it's the liberal plantation mentality, in which if you're a man on the right and white, it's OK. If you are the man on the right and you're African-American, it's not." - Charles Krauthammer, December 6, 2004

"They're going to say that blacks were disenfranchised, whatever they can do in order to regain power, to keep black Americans angry in order to keep them on the plantation of the Democratic Party. It's about that and nothing else." - Jesse Lee Peterson, November 29, 2004

"Democrats are rubbing their eyes in disbelief not just at President Bush's success across America, but also about the fact that a major group they thought would stay on the liberal plantation forever is making a getaway. As they escape out the back door, members of this group are saying "hasta la vista, baby."- Michael Gonzalez, Opinion Journal 11/08/04

"A real job is marrying a very rich man and spending the rest of your life giving away the money you never made a penny of yourself. That's a real job. And that kind of snobbery and sort of, you know, plantation mentality, you've seen in her for months. And this is only a small eruption of it." - Charles Krauthammer (speaking about Teresa Heinz Kerry), October 20, 2004

"After all, nothing upsets Sen. Kennedy and his pals more than when those they view as intellectual slaves dares to leave the Democratic plantation." - Robert Alt, The National Review 09/05/03

"I mean, he [Tom DeLay] does make the trains run on time. He sort of reminds you of an antebellum plantation where he's the straw boss. I mean, people live in terror of, of, of crossing him." - Mort Kondracke, July 5, 2003

"Yeah, but liberals have used many scare tactics over many decades to gain support for their plantation of dependency. We conservatives do not like to see the plantation of dependency consistently expanded. What we've done is try to eradicate it, eliminate it. And that's why the welfare reforms have worked. Why then would the liberals now try to reconstruct that same plantation of dependency?" - Josh Green, May 6, 2002

"You have a lot of irons in the fire, and you're getting heat from both sides: those that are complaining that in selling BET Holdings to Viacom you're giving up control of content, and then others that are saying, in going into DC Air, you are not competitive unless you have a majority partner, and it's a plantation-type mentality." - Karen Gibbs (to Robert Johnson, BET Holdings CEO), January 15, 2001

"The liberal Democrats have run their party like a great plantation. They have not done things that have been in the best interests of African Americans. They have passed out to the poor..." - Cal Thomas, January 13, 2000

"There is no legal process provided in the constitution. What's provided, by the way, is not a vote by the American people, either. What is provided for is a vote by the Congress of the United States, the House to impeach, the Senate to convict, with a responsibility to the constitution and the law. And I find it appalling to sit here and listen to these gentlemen arguing as if this is supposed to be a majority tyranny without respect for constitutional principle, without respect for moral conscience. If that view had prevailed, I'd still be picking cotton on some plantation. Thank God it did not." - Alan Keyes (a part of his argument for why Clinton should be impeached), September 29, 1998