Sen. Clinton's "plantation" remark draws more criticism

WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham's Clinton's controversial description of the Republican-dominated House as "a plantation" continued making political waves Wednesday, as Laura Bush joined the fray from Africa.

"I think it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous comment, that's what I think," she told reporters who asked about the statement as she flew home after visiting Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria.

The first lady became the latest Republican to take her White House predecessor to task. The day before, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan called the New York Democrat's comments "way out of line."

Clinton, who appears to be coasting to an easy re-election victory this year and is widely seen as a probable 2008 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke out Monday during a ceremony in Harlem honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Addressing a supportive audience, she said: "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 taking about. ... 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."

Clinton went on to condemn the Bush administration, adding: "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."

Given the racial overtones of Clinton's "plantation" remark, Democrats dispatched Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Senate's only African American, to the airwaves Wednesday to defend his colleague.

"I think what Sen. Clinton was referring to was ... that there's been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House," he told CNN's "American Morning."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Obama accused the GOP of "shutting out Democrats and people who are not willing to pay to play ...

"And so what you've seen is further and further concentration of power around a very narrow agenda that advantages the most powerful, and I think that's what Sen. Clinton was referring to," he said.

On Tuesday night, Clinton stood by her comments, saying "top-down" decision-making by GOP congressional leaders was bad for the country.

Kennedy drops out

of male-only club

WASHINGTON — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has dropped his membership in a male-only social club for Harvard students and alumni, one week after criticizing Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for having belonged to an alumni group that opposed expanded enrollments of women and minorities at Princeton.

Kennedy aides said there is no comparison between Harvard's Owl Club, which they likened to a fraternity, and the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a politically oriented group that opposed efforts to bring more women and minorities to that university.

Nonetheless, Kennedy ended his membership in the Owl Club because he thought "it was a mistake to continue to be affiliated."

— The Washington Post