Clinton & Gore Working the Holiday?
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The NewsLooks like yesterday wasn’t really Martin Luther King Day, instead it was bash Bush and the Republicans Day …
First there was Hillary …
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.
Then there was Gore …
What I did not see in either of these respective speeches was a depiction of what the Democrats had done in the past or, more importantly, proposed to do differently in the future.
It’s tough to see anything but opportunism and grandstanding in the timing (MLK Day) and tone of those speeches, but I realize there my be other opinions held so …
Do you feel these speeches were appropriate?
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January 17th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
instead it was bash Bush and the Republicans Day …
What other day(s), besides MLK day, is it improper to express your views regardng the President and the Republican party?
January 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Blue Neponset,
Gore’s been lying pretty low and Hillary has been relatively quiet, so why pick MLK Day to give those speeches?
January 17th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
It’s pretty simple. It’s a federal holiday. With all federal offices closed, Congress out of session, and all courts in recess, there’s very little news. However, there’s still the same amount of newsprint and airtime to fill. A speech is far more likely to get attention if it’s given on a naturally slow news day. Had it been October, it would have made sense to give a speech on Columbus Day.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
so why pick MLK Day to give those speeches?
I don’t know. Why not pick MLK day to give those speeches?
January 17th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
“so why pick MLK Day to give those speeches?”
Umm, I’m just going to go out on a limb (and I’m sure those of you who track polls and “people’s feelings” can support me on this) but I don’t think that a lot of black people like G.W.. I mean sure, there are a hand full of Thomas Sowell’s and Armstrongs, exc., (and certainly many blacks in the military) but as a general proposition…blacks are overwhelmingly Democrat.
So MLK day is the perfect day to attack Bush. It is a day when Republicans tip-toe around and try not to offend people by their mere existence. It is a free day to bash them over the head, because any response will be twisted into an attack against “the Dream” and MLK.
Just a theory, could be wrong.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
To your point about not offering anything for the future, please…make a logic leap with me here. If Hillary and Gore are talking about stuff that Bush isn’t doing right, then that suggests they will, meaning letting dissenting voices into the conversation and respecting existing FISA laws.
What’s more important, I think, is that Gore and Bob Barr (a Republican) were joining forces to talk about this now. That shows some centrist unity on this issue, does it not?
As far as MLK day…well…that’s just the reality of politics. They’re going to choose symbolic days to talk about this stuff. I don’t begrudge either side too much on these decisions because, in the end, it’s all about getting the most ears listening to your views.