Cynics Unlimited

• A woman enters a House office building (in post-9/11 America) without proper identification
• The woman goes around the metal detector and fails to respond to requests by Capitol Police to stop
• When confronted by the officer, the woman assaults the officer

What does this sequence of events suggest to you? If you’re Rep. Cynthia McKinney it suggests racial profiling and you claim you acted in self-defense. None of the facts revealed thus far support this claim and U.S. Capitol Police now have an arrest warrant out for McKinney. Furthermore, McKinney’s past with public outbursts and grandstanding (particularly with racial issues) have lessened her credibility to about 0.

(Un)fortunately the blog entry best suited to address Ms McKinney was written before she decided to act up. An excerpt follows:

The biggest problem with all of these political games is that real racism still exists and is being overlooked simply because some people scream “racism” louder than others. As the public becomes increasingly fed-up with accusations of bigotry hurled as retribution for political dissidence or simply to smear an opponent, the real issues of racial discrimination will remain on the back-burner.

Of course, McKinney is nearly in the Rush Limbaugh class of predictably spouting nonsense without thinking, so it’s a wonder she is getting as much press as she is. However two observations are worthy of attention:

Firstly, the Democrat party is demonstrating once again why they should not be in charge of America any time soon. Not one would-be candidate or even concerned citizen has gotten up and directly challenged Cynthia’s bizarre behavior over the past few years, or attempted to establish a standard of behavior for Democrats. Compare this with the Republican Party’s sharp response to recent rants by Strom Thurmond. It’s not so much the nature of the Democratic response as the lack of a coherent response that raises credibility issues. Does anyone stand for anything particular in the Democrat Party? Furthermore, why hasn’t the Congressional Black Caucus – ever weary of the fact that there are jackals on both sides of the political spectrum waiting to use McKinney-style outbursts to discredit CBC initiatives – attempted to pacify or secure the Atlanta Rep?

Secondly, the response of right wing citizens (both on talk radio and in the blogosphere) has all but legitimized the fear many minorities have about joining Republican ranks (or for that matter the Canadian Conservative Party). The usual “moonbat” criticism of Cynthia McKinney is expected, but some are taking it much further than that in order to air other grievances (without crossing the critical line of course). Neal Boortz lead the charge:

“I saw Cynthia McKinney’s hairdo yesterday — saw it on TV. I don’t blame that cop for stopping her. It looked like a welfare drag queen was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building. That hairdo is ghetto trash.”

And so the conclusion from CU’s race card entry rings true – both sides of the political spectrum will use race or accusations of racism to get ahead.

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In other news, Parliament is back so I can return to Canadian politics matters. Cheers to that!