Assaulting
Cynthia McKinney
By Remi Kanazi
08 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Joe Scarborough, political hack
and host of Scarborough Country on MSNBC, went on yet another odious
rant on April 3. This time his scurrilous remarks were aimed at six-term
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The Congresswoman is accused of punching
a Capitol Hill security officer in the chest (with cell phone in hand).
After McKinney skirted a metal detector (members of Congress are not
required to go through metal detectors) an officer, according to a witness,
asked McKinney to stop several times. The officer claimed that he didn't
recognize the six-term Congresswoman (although each officer is given
pictures of members of Congress); it seems that the confusion was due
to McKinney's new haircut. What would they have done to Dick Cheney
in hunting gear? McKinney's lawyers allege that a skirmish ensued after
the officer "harassed" the Congresswoman and forcefully grabbed
her by the arm. The Washington Post quoted McKinney, "Let me be
clear: This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching
and stopping of me, a female black congresswoman."
If you were watching Scarborough
Country, you wouldn't have heard McKinney's claim, because Scarborough
dove right into slanderous commentary and demonizing drivel: "How
do you solve a problem like Cynthia McKinney?…The six-term Congresswoman
from Georgia has long been considered an embarrassing fact of life for
constituents, Congressman and Capitol Hill police." Scarborough
went on to misquote McKinney, asserting that the Congresswoman claimed
that George Bush knew about 9/11 and didn't do anything about it because
it helped Bush's family's stock portfolio. Scarborough ended his diatribe
with words of reassurance, "The good news, saying stupid things
is not a crime." That's right, because Joe Scarborough, media guardian
of Natalie Holloway and defender of creationism, would have jailed a
long time ago.
It didn't concern Scarborough
that a class action lawsuit has been filed by black Capitol Hill police
officers against the United States Capitol Police department or that
McKinney has been targeted by the brave protectors on Capitol Hill in
the past. Race just isn't an issue in America anymore—we all learned
that after Hurricane Katrina. Apparently it wasn't enough to bash McKinney
alone, so Scarborough brought on founding editor of Wonkette, Ana Marie
Cox (the quintessential apologist democrat). Cox echoed Scarborough's
assertions and added, "I worry [as a democrat] that she [McKinney]
makes us all look a little crazy." Cox need not worry, incompetence
and feebleness trumps craziness, and the democrats have enough to go
around.
The McKinney coverage coincided
with the resignation of former House leader and truth teller Tom Delay.
In an apparent tribute to Delay, Scarborough said that in all his years
in Congress Delay had always been honest with him. Maybe Scarborough
was introduced to the soft side of the Hammer, the rest of us know him
as the morally bankrupt zealot who went down in flames quicker than
Bush's foreign policy.
Scarborough's recent tirade
came just weeks after he went ballistic because one of his guests asserted
that "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism." God forbid Scarborough
let the Jewish lobby get upset (oh wait, I forgot the Jewish Lobby doesn't
exists). McKinney has been an outspoken critic of Israel's Apartheid-style
policies and was vilified by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee
in her 2002 election run.
But is McKinney the problem
as Scarborough claims? I would beg to differ. What is "embarrassing"
is Scarborough's disregard for journalistic integrity. If Scarborough
had the sack to report on matters such as no wmd's, the 100,000 plus
dead civilians in Iraq, America's persistent human rights abuses around
the world, and the impoverished and downtrodden in American society,
people like McKinney wouldn't have to work so hard. Maybe "craziness"
is an aftereffect of doing your job. The fact remains: progressives
like McKinney are few and far between in Congress, while "pundits"
like Scarborough are flooding cable TV with propaganda and neocon complicity.
Remi Kanazi is the primary
writer for the political website www.PoeticInjustice.net He lives in
New York City as a Palestinian American freelance writer, poet and performer
and can reached via
email at [email protected]