A pity that the Dems, who were having such a nice week with Tom DeLay’s resignation, now have to be distracted by their resident House whacko, Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). As…
A pity that the Dems, who were having such a nice week with Tom DeLay’s resignation, now have to be distracted by their resident House whacko, Cynthia McKinney (D-GA).
As U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia, faces possible criminal charges for a Wednesday altercation with a Capitol Police officer, one of her lawyers said Friday that the real issues were “sex, race and Ms. McKinney’s progressiveness.”
In a news conference featuring actor Danny Glover and singer Harry Belafonte, McKinney said she would be exonerated and that “this whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female, black congresswoman.”
She had little else to say, citing the ongoing investigation into her allegedly striking a police officer after he failed to recognize her at a security checkpoint and tried to stop her from passing.
McKinney tried to slip past a magetometer checkpoint, as Congressfolk are allowed to do. She was not wearing the pin that IDs her as a Congresscritter, though, and the guard did not (apparently) recognize her. When he tried to stop her, she slugged him with a hand that had a cell phone in it.
McKinney was initially “regretful” about the incident, but as reports began to circulate that she might be arrested, she (as she so often has before) played the race and gender cards, claiming that she was manhandled, touched “inappropriately,” and that it was, in fact, outrageous that the capitol police officer had not automatically recognized (and, thus, deferred to) her.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney on Friday declared herself the victim of a racist Capitol Hill police officer who her supporters said used excessive force when he stopped her from skirting a security checkpoint earlier this week.
“The whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me — a female, black congresswoman,” McKinney said at a news conference, abandoning the apologetic tone she struck earlier in the week.
Capitol police are considering filing assault charges against the DeKalb County Democrat next week. But her lawyers said she was acting in self-defense when she struck the officer who tried to stop her.
“Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is … a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin,” said one of McKinney’s lawyers, James Myart Jr.
McKinney spoke on the campus of predominantly black Howard University, surrounded by more than a dozen African-American children from South Georgia’s Coffee County who held signs reading “Is Cynthia a Target?” and “Recognize Our Congresswoman.”
[…] “She’s a victim,” said [NAACP officer Hal] Pressley. “For Ms. McKinney not to be immediately recognized by the Capitol police was, in itself, an insult. She’s recognizable from around the world, so in D.C., our capital, you would expect that almost any police officer would recognize her, with all the controversy attached to her name.”
Um … I don’t think I could pick her up out of a set of photos, aside from knowing she’s a black woman. Heck, I couldn’t pick up Bill Frist out of a set of photos, too. I think Ms. McKinney & Co. have a slightly inflated impression of her fame.
What brought this case to my attention was watching an interview this morning on CNN with McKinney and her lawyer. The interviewer tried to get her to explain what had happened. McKinney launched into a prepared statement about race and the police and racial profiling and …. So the interviewer interrupted her, and asked again for the details. And, again, McKinney answered with broad statements about police and racial profiling and …. And, again, the interviewer offered to discuss that, but wanted to hear what had actually happened, from her mouth. At which point her lawyer answered by talking about racial profiling and the police and ….
Now, it may very well be that, with possible criminal charges (you know, hitting a police officer?), McKinney is not making any statements so that they cannot then be used against her. But that would be an easy statement to make: “Since the police have decided, so long after the fact, to possibly press charges to prove their point here, I can’t comment on any details at this time. The real story will come out soon enough. But this is, to my mind, yet another example of how the police and racial profiling …”
But she didn’t say that. Neither did her lawyer. They seemed only interested in polemic, rather than answering the questions. Which, if it seems evasive and exploitative — is.
Now, this begs the issue of problems of race, police, racial profiling, etc., which are very real and do need to be discussed and addressed. But McKinney isn’t doing that cause any favor by her posturing, especially as it smacks of “I’m important and should be immediately recognized” and “How dare they touch me! How dare they object when I hit them!”
“Something that perhaps the average American just doesn’t understand is that there is a heightened sense of a lack of appropriateness being there for members who are elected who happen to be of color,” McKinney said, “and until this issue is addressed by the American public in a very substantive way, it won’t be the last time.”
Color me average, then, because I don’t even understand what that sentence means.
Republicans are busy crowing over all of this, getting to paint themselves as supporters of law and order, and of security. Dems seem to be (rightfully) wishing McKinney would just go away.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) distanced herself from McKinney: “I think what happened last week was a very unfortunate incident. I think that all members of Congress like to be recognized, that’s for sure. And this was a case in which she wasn’t. I don’t think any of it justifies hitting a police officer. I don’t know if that happened, but I am saying if it did happen, I don’t think it was justified.”
No, I don’t think it is. And to try to turn it into some huge political statement is even less justified.
