[Mb-civic] 'Plantation' Politics and Other Games - Michael Kinsley - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

'Plantation' Politics and Other Games

By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, January 29, 2006; B07

It seems to be time once again to play Kick the Democrats. Everyone can 
play, including Democrats. The rules are simple. When Republicans lose 
elections, it is because they didn't get enough votes. When Democrats 
lose elections, it is because they have lost their principles and lost 
their way. Or they have kept their principles, which is an even worse 
mistake.

They represent no one who is not actually waiting in line for a latte at 
a Starbucks within 150 yards of the east or west coastline. They are 
mired in trivial lifestyle issues like, oh, abortion and gay rights and 
Americans killing and dying in Iraq, while the Republicans serve up meat 
and potatoes for real Americans like privatizing Social Security and 
making damned sure the government knows who is Googling whom in this 
great country.

Just repeat these formulas until a Democrat has been sent into frenzies 
of self-flagellation or reduced to tears.

There is always a pickup game of Kick the Democrats going on somewhere. 
But something about the Alito confirmation -- the pathetic and 
apparently surprising inability of 45 Democratic senators to stop 55 
Republicans from approving anyone they want -- seems to have made the 
game suddenly a lot more popular.

How dire is it for the Democrats? George Will noted on TV the other day 
that they have lost five of the past seven presidential elections. This 
baseball-like statistic -- "Democrats have lost X of the past Y 
elections" -- has been one of Will's favorite tropes over the 
generations. But why now five out of seven? Two out of the past four 
would be equally accurate, and not nearly as grim. And then there is the 
election of 2000. We can argue forever (and will) about who won that 
election, but if the question is whose views attracted more voters, 
there is no dispute that the answer is the Democrats. Attributing 2000 
to the Democrats means they have won two of the past three elections, 
three of the past four, and a non-apocalyptic three of the magic seven.

This is not an argument for complacency. Obviously the party that has 
lost the White House, both houses of Congress and now the courts needs 
some new ideas and new energy. But it seems undeniably true to me -- 
though many deny it -- that the Republicans simply play the game better. 
You're not supposed to say that. At Pundit School they teach you: Always 
go for the deeper explanation, not the shallower one. Never suggest that 
people (let alone "the" people) can be duped.

Nevertheless, I've been impressed all over again the past couple weeks 
with the Republicans' skill at political stone soup -- making something 
out of nothing. In this case it's a remark by Hillary Clinton comparing 
Congress to a plantation. Near as I can tell, the alleged objection to 
"plantation" is -- by analogy to the Holocaust -- that any metaphorical 
use of the word is an insult to the real slaves and their descendants. 
This particular stone soup would be overheated even if the ingredients 
were fresh and sincere. But the fuss is obviously cynical, coming as it 
does from people -- talk radio hosts, the editors of the Wall Street 
Journal: you know the type -- who usually stalk the microphones to 
denounce excessive sensitivity and its smothering effect on political 
debate.

What's especially impressive is how the get-Hillary campaign was not 
even slowed by the discovery that Newt Gingrich had used the same 
metaphor back when he was somebody. A hilarious op-ed this week in the 
Wall Street Journal explained that while Hillary's remark was 
"pandering" and patronizing ("Must blacks have their slave past rubbed 
in their face . . .?"), Gingrich "had the good taste to cast himself as 
a slave who would 'lead the slave rebellion.' " Well, each to his own 
good taste, I suppose.

But that metaphor of a corrupt plantation seemed more familiar than just 
one of Newt's old ravings. And indeed the Wall Street Journal editorial 
page has used it more than once. In 2001, for example, the man who now 
runs that page, Paul Gigot, wrote (in reference to Sen. Joe Lieberman) 
about "how . . . the black liberal establishment can punish a Democrat 
who strays from their plantation." The previous year, an editorial about 
the Massachusetts congressional delegation carried the headline, "The 
Liberal Plantation."

And then (just to show what a little Googling can do), there was a small 
2001 item in the Wall Street Journal's news section about Vice President 
Cheney spending the weekend shooting quail at the "plantation" of a rich 
Republican contributor. Hillary Clinton uses the word "plantation" while 
Dick Cheney actually goes to one. But that's the Democrats for you: all 
talk and no action.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701219.html
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