In Defense of Cynthia McKinney
It's no wonder that the American Kleptocracy continues to thrive. When a rare politician with a conscience like Cynthia McKinney dares to challenge the White House she is widely (though wrongly) discredited, mocked and discounted by her peers, as well as by pundits in the main stream media. Even the blogosphere has kicked her a bit as well. At least that's the impression one gets after googling "Cynthia McKinney's Impeachment Bill" and reading the predominantly conservatively slanted diatribes against the Congresswoman from Georgia.
One reads invectives such as "nutjob" and others who essentially call her a "racist" because after learning that the Clinton-Gore administration at one time had placed a ceiling on the number of black Secret Service agents who could be assigned to protect Gore, she called Gore out on her Congressional Web site. At that time she wrote that "Gore's Negro tolerance level has never been too high." She added that "I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time. I'm not shocked, but I am certainly saddened by this revelation." McKinney reportedly learned about the limit of black agents permitted to guard Gore from a group of agents who were bringing a racial discrimination suit against the Clinton-Gore Treasury Department, which is the mother agency of the Secret Service.
Well, I might be crazy, but I certainly don't think that the above comments by McKinney warrant being called a racist. In fact, in the above comments she merely seems to be pointing out what is a natural conclusion based on the information. If Gore didn't or doesn't have a problem with black people than why set the limit on Secret Service personnel? I only bring this story up to demonstrate how the Republicans, the Conservative media and moderate Bush apologist Democrats attempt to paint McKinney in a negative light, often disregarding the context and the facts surrounding some of her more controversial comments.
So, where is all this anti-McKinney venom coming from? Despite the fact that there are many on the left who admire her courage to speak out and her willingness to take on the President and the corrupt status quo in Washington, the collective roar of the bashing she has been taking and the character assassination she has suffered the last two days after introducing Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has far outweighed the endorsements and praise she has garnered.
The reason for this should be clear; McKinney is that rare politician who won't play ball with the Big Boys. She has never kowtowed to the Republicans reguarding the war in Iraq, and has persistently trumpeted the unsavory truth that Bush was never legitimately elected to the post he now holds. This is why the majority of her Democrat colleagues resent her and have slandered her in print and on the airwaves. This is also why they "tossed bundles of money" at her challenger Hank Johnson in the recent Primary Election. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchison/mckinneys-and-any-other b_36030.html)
Earl Ofari Hutchison believes that her impeachment bill "was never really about nailing Bush, but about getting back at House Democrats." I don't believe this. In fact, I think it is a ridiculous suggestion. If, McKinney's bill will "die a slow death" like most pundits are suggesting, how is she "getting back at Democrats?" She has always been an outspoken critic of Bush and his administration, so to suggest that she has introduced Articles of Impeachment in order to get back at moderate Democrats sympathetic to Bush, or pro-war Democrats, is absurd. McKinney's actions totally make sense when viewed in the context of her history: in 1991 she spoke out against the Persian Gulf War, she has been a strong supporter of human rights and has condemned human rights abuses against Palestinians by Israel and has supported the 9/11 Truth Movement while calling for further investigations and governmental transparency as regards the events leading up to and occuring on that day. She has also been very vocal about Bush's illegal wiretapping of American citizens and his manipulation of and lying to the American people to justify the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq. All things considered it is not difficult to understand why she would bring forth the Impeachment bill, or why she continues to be despised by so many power brokers in Washington and elsewhere.
The following comments that Rep. McKinney prepared for the Atlanta Progressive News and that are available on MichaelMoore.com sum up her position on the criminal and unconstitutional behavior of President Bush and his administration (http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/print.php?id=787).
What political analyst's like Earl Ofari Hutchison fail to recognize is that McKinney is indeed an "outcast" in Washington because she has a conscience and because she is not afraid to speak truth to power, even when that means questioning the very legitimacy of the holder of the highest office in the Western world. As she says in her comments which she was not allowed to read on the House Floor;
"....... We have a President who has misgoverned and a Congress that has refused to hold him accountable. It is a grave situation and I believe the stakes for our country are high.
No American is above the law, and if we allow a President to violate, at the most basic and fundamental level, the trust of the American people and then continue to govern, without a process for holding him accountable, what does that say about our commitment to the truth? To the Constitution? To our democracy? (.)
Indeed. And what does it say about supposedly free-thinking Americans that they would so readily and in such great numbers condemn Cynthia McKinney for speaking truths that we all need to hear? Why would free-thinking Americans condemn her for seeking the justice and full accountability that our current government apparatus so obviously lacks?
