But I Have Black Friends...

Whenever some prominent white man (it's always a man, isn't it?) is accused of racism he will almost always trot out this line. In my last Raising Kane entry I basically used this trick in defense of Hillary. You see, Newt Gingrich used the word "plantation" in a sentence too:

"I clearly fascinate them," Gingrich said of the Democrats. "I'm much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion." [Washington Post, 10/20/94]

Of course, it is unlikely that Gingrich uttered his words at an MLK event, as the story is from October, and I suppose that some of the racial implications that were obvious in Hillary's statement are simply not there in Gingrich's due to their audiences, but he still said it.

And that makes what Hillary said OK.