Saturday, April 08, 2006

Cynthia McKinney's Capitol Offense

Cynthia McKinney Alexander Cockburn is right. Cynthia McKinney did not handle the Capitol police affair deftly. Unlike Cockburn, though, I believe she should have apologized for her role in the incident and should have apologized much sooner.

Anyone in Washington with an ounce of political acumen knows that McKinney doesn’t have many friends among her fellow Democrats, given her political stances on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Israel’s occupation of Palestine, her call to investigate 9/11 before it was fashionable and so on. Her fellow Democrats would love to see McKinney once again drummed out of Congress.

She probably faces more harassment than almost any other member of Congress. McKinney knows this to be the case. So, if she’s willing to do business with the devil as a member of the U.S. Congress, she should probably better prioritize her battles.

That’s why McKinney should have quickly issued a public apology after the run-in with the Capitol police officer, instead of letting the issue drag on for days.

The U.S. Capitol police definitely shares in the blame for the incident. The Capitol police officer should have run ahead of McKinney to confirm who she was without grabbing her from behind.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Hillary Clinton or Kay Bailey Hutchison had been grabbed from behind by a Capitol police officer and then reacted like McKinney did? That police officer’s career as a member of the Capitol police force would have been over. Clinton’s Democratic colleagues would have stood behind her the whole way and would have deemed her response to the grabbing justified. Hutchison and her fellow Republicans would have responded in the same way.

But McKinney doesn’t have many friends on Capitol Hill. That’s why she should have quickly apologized for allegedly punching the police officer with a cell phone. She knows that she was in a no-win situation. Washington is run by hypocrites and ruled by double standards. Isn’t her time better spent fighting to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bringing a little sanity to Washington than going on the attack against the Capitol police?

Furthermore, McKinney’s appearance on CNN’s Soledad O’Brien show earlier this week was a disaster. Her performance was embarrassing. She never should have agreed to appear on the show. She should have known that the reprehensible O’Brien was going to focus solely on the facts of the scuffle and not the issue of racial and political profiling and harassment by the Capitol police force. Since the case had gone to a federal grand jury, McKinney could not comment on the scuffle without possibly putting herself in legal jeopardy. So why bother appearing on CNN?

And, as Cockburn noted, if McKinney wanted to appear on such shows, why did she need a lawyer at her side? She’s astute enough to know what to say and what not to say in relation to possible legal proceedings.

Here’s my interpretation of the event: The Capitol police officer truly did not recognize her as she walked by the metal detector. He followed her and then unnecessarily grabbed her arm from behind, instead of jogging ahead of her to request identification. Greatly offended by not being recognized and then grabbed, McKinney reacted by quickly turning and swinging her hand into the chest of the police officer. In the heat of the moment, I’m sure many fellow members of Congress would have reacted in the same way if grabbed by a Capitol police officer.

After emotions had calmed, McKinney was probably still angry at the police officer but was embarrassed by how she had reacted. Instead of admitting from the start that she should not have thrown a punch, McKinney made the disastrous PR move of letting the little incident grow out of control. A simple apology would have probably turned the scuffle into a two- or three-day story. And then she could have carried on with her quixotic work of trying to reverse the despicable policies of the nation’s Republicans and Democrats. - Mark Hand

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