Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Cynthia McKinney and Her Brush With the Law

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a liberal Democrat, punched one of the capital cops last week in an apparent misunderstanding. Let's run down a few points.

1. This is a Christmas Gift to the Republicans. They are going to take this and run with this, in much the same way that Liberals and Democrats had fun with Vice President Cheney shooting a guy.

2. Republicans are going to use this issue a bit more seriously than Democrats used the Shooting. In other words the story about Cheney was that it was a Stupid Mistake, which party you belonged to determined which of those two words was more important. In contrast, Republicans will paint Cynthia McKinney's mistake in as ugly a light as possible, not giving her the slightest element of doubt.

3. It was clearly a mistake on Cynthia McKinney's part, one she shouldn't have made.

4. To dwell on this mistake, on the other hand, is to give ammunition to those who would use this mistake to hound Ms. McKinney from congress - rather Democrats and Liberals should focus on the hypocrisy of Republicans defending Cheney for shooting a guy in the face and then attacking Cynthia McKinney for a smaller offense.

That's my take on the event, anyway.

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