Hillary Compares GOP to Plantations

Hillary Clinton compared the House GOP to plantations on MLK day.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking yesterday at a ceremony honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissent is not tolerated.

Her comments, made before a predominantly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, drew a harsh response from national Republicans, but black leaders came to her defense.

At the ceremony, Mrs. Clinton, the junior Democratic senator from New York, said that Democrats were largely responsible for much of the nation's progress in areas like civil rights and women's rights.

But she suggested that things had changed in recent years with the Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, according to a transcript of her remarks.

Mrs. Clinton added that the House has been "run like a plantation" under Republicans. "And you know what I am talking about," she said. "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument."

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, accused Mrs. Clinton of using divisive and racially tinged language to score partisan points. "On a day when Americans are focused on honoring Martin Luther King, it is disappointing that Senator Clinton is focused on advancing her own agenda," she said.

But Mrs. Clinton's aides defended the comments, as did black Democratic leaders.

"As she said, under Republican rule the House leadership has stifled real and substantive debate, preventing Democrats from offering amendments and engaging in real discussion," said Philippe Reines, Mrs. Clinton's spokesman.

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