By keeping her in Washington, Georgians have managed to foist her off on the rest of us and kept her away from Peach Street.
As I sit here, I don’t yet know if Rep. Cynthia McKinney is going to face criminal charges for hitting the officer. And, frankly, I’m not sure if I want to see her charged. It’s not that I wouldn’t be delighted at the prospect of having her marched off to the cooler. But the truth is that’s not going to happen. Even if she were to be indicted, and even if they were to go to the trouble and expense of putting her on trial, are any of us so naïve as to expect a member of Congress — especially a female, and a black one at that — to do jail time?
Another reason I don’t want them to go through the motions is that I have already seen enough of Rep. McKinney and heard enough from her to last me several lifetimes.
And still one more reason is that I don’t want to find myself generalizing about the good people of Georgia, as I’m sure I would if I kept seeing this arrogant dimwit on the news night after night. After all, I live in Southern California, home of people like Barbra Streisand, Rob Reiner, and Charlie Sheen. So you can see why, living in this glass house, I’d prefer not to be tempted to throw stones. But, holy moly, you folks in Atlanta, who have elected this national embarrassment on six separate occasions, really do have some explaining to do.
The best excuse I can come up with is that by keeping her in Washington, you have managed to foist her off on the rest of us and kept her away from Peach Street.
But, when it comes to offending large groups of people, even McKinney was no match for those mobs of Latinos who recently marched down the streets of America, waving Mexican flags. If that was someone’s idea of the best way to win friends and influence people, that someone is an idiot.
Recently, I heard two guys on a sports show discussing the new pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves. They agreed he was well-qualified, but they felt he would be working under somewhat of a handicap because he didn’t speak Spanish, and would therefore have a problem communicating with certain members of the staff. No doubt they’re right, but what I’d like to know is why these pitchers haven’t taken the time to learn English. After all, it’s no secret that from an early age, kids all over Latin America set their sights on playing ball in los Estados Unidos. We also know that certain American teams have created and subsidized baseball academies south of the border. So, how is it that nobody has taken the time to teach these kids something besides how to throw a slider and how to steal second when a southpaw’s on the mound?
I probably shouldn’t be too hard on the kids. After all, Rep. McKinney was born here and she doesn’t speak all that well.
But her basic message still comes through loud and clear. Namely, that nobody is to be allowed to take any black person to task for anything without being automatically accused of racism. People like Ms. McKinney, Harry Belafonte, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Charles Rangel, and Danny Glover, remind me of riverboat gamblers. But instead of palming aces and dealing seconds, it’s always the race card they’ve got tucked up their sleeve.
The whole sorry bunch of them are like the boy who cried “Wolf!” once too often. If an actual racist came anywhere near the sheep, nobody would believe these race hustlers.
In conclusion, I know that much has been made of the fact that perhaps the reason the officer didn’t recognize Rep. McKinney was because she had recently changed her hairdo. My own theory is that he mistook her for someone else, and that when he tapped her on the shoulder, it was only to ask for Buckwheat’s autograph.
BurtPrelutsky@aol.com
http://www.burtprelutsky.com/
Read more articles by Burt Prelutsky
Well, I agree with the sentiment expressed about the nutcase from Georgia, but I had two problems with this article.
1) What's the deal with the illegal immigrant/learn to speak English stuff? Was that all just a segue to "After all, Rep. McKinney was born here and she doesn’t speak all that well."?
2) I thought the "Buckwheat" comment was uncalled for. There's enough on Ms. McKinney that we don't have to pull out that name-calling garbage. It was a cheap shot and unneccessary.
The writer may have something with the theory that Georgians keep electing her to keep her out of their own state, though.
Comment by Ron S. | April 18, 2006
swell column
Comment by parsimonious mom | April 20, 2006
If anyone is interested in the complete ineffectiveness of Ms. McKinney as a "legislator" during her ten years in Congress, check out her voting record on vote-smart.org. Spells it out in detail, and tells you exactly what she has voted for and against. It also lets you know how many smoke and mirrors are involved in her "career". What she says she does she doesn't, and vice versa. Check it out.
Comment by clyde | April 21, 2006
Just found and enjoyed reading some of your articles Burt. I am a Georgian residing within voting McKinneys District 4 in the gerrymandered sliver about a hundred yards wide that stretches north from her base inside South Dekalb County for approximately 7 miles then spreads out both East and West for another 7 miles. Somewhere along the line State Legislators figured this district needed more color to be legitimized. (the color WHITE mind you) Inside this SLIVER voters like myself have rejected her to the tune of about 90% in everyone of those elections shes won handily except for one. The SLIVER represents less than 10% of her constituency which Dist 4 is the most racist (reverse) segment of our entire State. In 2002 whens she lost the election this SLIVER was had been temporarily expanded to about double its current size and she lost handlily. Fed Law stepped in and changed the SLIVER back to its gerrymandered geography. This woman is an abomination, embarrasment and humilation to every citizen of our state. Her current legislative proposal regarding Tupac Shakur being made into the 21st Century MLK is so revealing and repulsive that it makes me want to regurgitate every time I hear her name mentioned for any reason. Her base district is so fraught with massive drug dealing, exorbitant percentage of felonious crimes and huge disproportinate high school drop our rates that her only proposed legislation is seriously STUCK on STUPID.Pander to the idiots is her platform. She has done absolutely NOTHING to imporve or assist the citizens of her district that it is mind boggling. School Buses are routinely commandeered against State Laws to transport homeless, drug addicts and others unlikely to be tax paying persons to the voting polls and handed cartons of cigarettes to pay them for their time and votes. This represents some 50,000 votes. It's truly disgusting and deserving of a federal investigation. Auditing this persons camapign accounts for felonius irregularities is the obvious way to have her removed from office.Converting this voting constituency is near impossible for she speaks "truth to power" and the criminals who keep voting her into office will forever be against the establishment for their own self serving reasons. THROW THIS BUM OUT by Federal investigation may be the only viable solution.
Comment by Scott | May 2, 2006