release

It seems that the celebration of an important and historic American figure brings out the weirdest of howl-at-the-moon tendencies in Democrats. On the one hand, we’ve got New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who claimed that the hurricanes were God’s way of punishing America and blacks in particular. Moving seamlessly from his Pat Robertson impression to his Louis Farrakhan impression, he then called for New Orleans to be rebuilt as a “chocolate” city:

“I don’t care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.”

Even the media thought this last comment seemed out of line.

Pressed later to explain his comments, Nagin, who is black, told CNN affiliate WDSU-TV that he was referring to creation of a racially diverse city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, insisting that his remarks were not divisive.

“How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about,” he said.

Glad he cleared that up. Meanwhile, back in the cradle of modern civilization that is New York City, U.S. Senator and likely Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton compared the House of Representatives to a “plantation”.

“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 said.

No, actually. What exactly are you talking about?

“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, to be heard,” Clinton said.

Oh, that makes it so much clearer. You weren’t actually race-bating, you were using a bizarre analogy to stand up for the free speech rights of our powerful elected leaders. Well, let’s see how that works out, shall we?

First, let’s look at the claim that no one gets to present legislation. Picking a random Democratic rep, let’s check the Congressional record: 14 bills sponsored. (”Random” selection method: go to the Library of Congress website, hit the pull-down menu for Representatives, scroll down an arbitrary amount, and hit the first option I see with a “D” by the name - Michaud was the first and only record I looked at.) Go ahead and try this with your favorite D, and leave your high score in the comments.

Repeating the same method for speaking opportunities, I searched the Congressional Record for Allen Boyd. Although I can’t find a way to directly link to the search results, there are at least 23 instances in the 109th Congress (in other words, in just the last calendar year) in which Rep. Boyd has been heard on the floor of the House of Representatives. Again, try this one at home.

Neither Michaud nor Boyd are atypical Dems - their evident empowerment no doubt extends to others of their class as well. Apparently being elected to one of the most powerful political bodies in the world really does come with some substantial media access rights. Not only does one get to introduce legislation, but one also gets to speak on the floor of the House in front of all the TV cameras until one turns blue, and then send letters to the yokels back home about it without paying a penny. Life on the plantation doesn’t seem all that bad from a free speech perspective.

So Senator, what exactly are you talking about?

If the Dems keep this up through the midterm elections, I predict a bloodbath.