Do I Hear an Echo? From Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion editor Cynthia Tucker, Aug. 14:
"McKinney has become not famous but infamous, embracing a paranoid worldview that borders on the irrational. She picks fights with those who ought to be her allies. She recklessly plays the race card. She engages in high-octane rhetoric guaranteed to keep her on the political fringe. . . . She has destroyed her credibility.
McKinney is one of an elite few members of Congress -- along with Jim Trafficant and a handful of other legendary folks -- about whom, when they speak, you have to ask: "[h]ow can you expect to be taken seriously?"
McKinney can't. Her shoot from the lip style pushed away her natural allies, and made her a whipping girl for the conservative commentariat. And even on basic matters like obeying election laws, she gets into trouble. . . . McKinney might pass every progressive litmus you throw at her, but that doesn't overcome our long memory of her attention-getting antics, last-minute no shows, and squawking about race to bat away criticism whenever she gets into trouble.
Rohrabacher told the press that other congressmen joined him at the meeting. A full accounting of what was said there, however, has yet to be given. Inquiring minds want to know. Anything to say, Bob?
‘Barr’s Just Gooder’ Someone tipped Cantabrigian blogger Matthew Yglesias off to wascally liberal-hating civil libertarian congressman Bob Barr’s latest opus: a campaign commercial that wraps with a farmer telling viewers that “Barr’s just gooder.” [The ever-pugnacious Barr, if you don’t know, got redistricted into a GOP primary fight with the buttoned-down Rep. John Linder.]
I can't believe that people will go for this — it seems like the more this ad airs, the better Linder will do.
Would that it were so, Matt, but Georgia’s a honeypot for bad campaign advertising. I need only point you to the example of the late Paul Coverdell, the Georgia senator who all observers say actually turned his 1992 campaign around with a single ad: a 30-second shot of grey-haired Republican activist Margie Lopp on a porch swing, creaking her way through a jingle she wrote herself. Want sample lyrics?
Let’s put Paul Coverdell in the Senate
and vote Wyche Fowler out
He’s too liberal for Georgia
He votes like Ted Kennedy . . .
Almost Forgot-- Guess who else is running for Congress from Georgia this year? Former McKinney chief of staff Merwyn Scott, a Democratic primary candidate in the state's newly minted 12th District. The district takes in three left-leaning cities -- Augusta, Savannah and Athens -- so whoever wins the primary stands an excellent chance against Barbara Dooley, the wife of the famed former Georgia football coach Vince Dooley and the likely Republican nominee.
Scott has to run in a crowded field, but for the moment he only has to play to get into the runoff. Some observers like his chances. Let's send a message and make 'em a little worse.
[Note to Georgia residents: this especially means you. Still don't know where to vote? That's no excuse. You can find out here.]
Update: Henry Hanks comments. "In his radio ads, he is using his connection to McKinney as a PLUS."
Blame Delaware! Blame Delaware! From The New Republic: Rogue State.
[M]uch of American corporate law is driven not by any rational consideration of the public good but by Delaware's desire to fund its government with the tiniest possible contribution from its own citizens. A seminal 1974 Yale Law Review article by William Cary of Columbia Law School observed that "a pygmy among the 50 states prescribes, interprets, and indeed denigrates national corporate policy as an incentive to encourage incorporation within its borders, thereby increasing its revenue."
Maybe -- but where would the world be without the Blue Hens?
I'm glad you all came over to visit. While you're here, though, I want you to take a look at some other Cynthia McKinney resources. You know my opinion -- but there's plenty of opinions out there, so let me point you in some other directions.
Reid Stott (a.k.a. PhotoDude): the bulldog on Cynthia's ankle. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say he's been blogging her since I was in diapers. His take? Well, just scroll to the bottom of the page.
Scott Koenig (a.k.a. Indepundit): the man who broke the 'Cynthia's Sept. 11 jackpot' story -- and lived to get credit for it from one of the papers that ran with the scoop! Some question whether that's a fair line of attack -- hey, don't other politicians get questionable donors too? But compare Koenig with Cynthia McKinney, and here's what you find: at least Koenig waited for evidence. McKinney would call in the scandal cops whenever she believed something to be the case. And that brings me to . . .
Max Sawicky, who thinks Congress needs more independent voices on the Middle East, and who isn't having any of this 'investigate Cynthia' buncombe. "If there was any pretense of fairness in this exercise," Max says, "we would be treated to their findings on donors to McKinney's opponent, Denise Majette. For instance, do any of Majette's donors favor transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank?"
Three bloggers, three opinions. Read 'em all.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to wash the car. =, Be back later.
There is no nice way to bring this up. Theodore Olson's wife, Barbara, was among the murdered when her plane was smashed into the Pentagon on September 11th of last year. Is Solicitor General really the best position for her justifiably aggrieved husband under the circumstances? Are there arguments about civil liberties, constitutional strictures and limitations on the war power that don't get made in White House and Justice Department strategy sessions he attends, out of understandable respect for his loss? When judges see Olson before them arguing a war powers case, what inhibitions do they feel, knowing his history?
More Sweetness and Light from the McKinney Camp Embattled Rep. Cynthia McKinney treated me to mail today, and as a public service I'll share it with the blogosphere.
Background Notes: Cynthia McKinney is black. Her opponent, ex-judge Denise Majette, is black. More than half of the people in the district are black. Now let the melee begin . . .
Front: Another Politician Selling Us Out [Image: Low-resolution picture of Denise Majette, casting a sidelong glance during a television issue. Caption: "Denise Majette."]
Rear: Judge Denise Majette Has Sold Us Out [Image, to right: Same picture as front.]
There's a war going on in Washington . . . a war between families who need access to affordable health care and the big drug and insurance companies who want to protect their billion dollar profits.
And Denise Majette has sold us out.
As a judge, Denise Majette repeatedly gave favorable rulings to big insurance companies who refused to pay injured people. Now, Majette is taking thousands of dollars in campaign cash from the insurance industry.
But it gets worse . . . Official government records show Majette has somewhere between $9,000 and $135,000 of her own money invested in funds that hold stock in drug companies, health care companies, and HMOs.
Majette won't fight for lower drug costs . . . because it will hurt her personal investments in the big drug and health care companies.
[Inset:
Majette Has Sold Us Out Denise Majette Sold Us Out when she invested her personal money in the big drug companies that prey on our families. We can't trust Denise Majette when she has investments in these drug companies: Medicis Pharmaceutical; Pfizer . . . (and so forth, until she lists 12. --ed.)]
Denise Majette . . . she can't be trusted because she's already sold us out.
If Cynthia McKinney has a crisis-management memo stowed away somewhere in her desk, here's what it says: "When in trouble, shout 'race.'"
People care about health care. They care about their investments. They get riled about corporations that don't play fair. But does the good congresswoman regale us with commentary on issues like those? Well, yes . . . in the small print. Look at the banner headlines, by contrast, and health care fades to the background in favor of three magic words: "sold us out."
Everywhere you look, Majette's "sold us out." Front and back, she's "sold us out." Boldfaced letters everywhere, screaming the message: "watch out, here's a sellout!"
In a black community, words don't get any more loaded than that.
Never, but ever, in African-American life, do you want a reputation as a sellout. A sellout is Clarence Thomas. A sellout is MC Hammer. A sellout is yesterday's lunch meat in today's garbage can. A sellout, in short, is nowhere you want to be.
Of course, McKinney never meant to leave that impression in our minds -- nooooooo, perish the thought. McKinney wants to talk health care. See that small print? Health care. The inset? Health care. She's got acres and acres of text about health care.
Query: how much time does the average American spend on politics in a week? Five minutes. How much time does an American in mid-campaign spend looking at one card? Not much. What part of a card makes the fastest impression on a reader? The headlines. How many times do the headlines on this card mention health care? Zero.
So is this card about health care? You do the math.
Last week on MaxSpeak while I talked about McKinney and race (see also here), someone put this to me in mid-argument:
I've never known anyone to use the circumlocution "playing the race card" who didn't believe that blacks should shut the hell up and remain silent at the back of the bus.
With that, I'll shut up and leave you to ponder Cynthia McKinney: a black woman who plays the race card to force her opponents -- even black ones -- to shut up and stay at the back of the bus.
Update: The congresswoman promised to talk issues in the studio with Atlanta talk show host Royal Marshall tonight, but -- alas! -- she bailed because of an unnamed "scheduling conflict." What happened next? Royal went to town on her for the rest of the show, and queued up some beautiful bumper music, to boot. He played "Jesse's Girl" in homage to McKinney's endorsement by the Rev. Jackson; he played "Have You Seen Her?"; he even dug out a chicken clucking its way through a rendition of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood."
Cynthia, you can't buy bad press like that. Keep up the good work. =,
The Smart Money? It's Not on McKinney Roll Call: McKinney Challenger Levels Financial Playing Field. "[Former] State Judge Denise Majette raised more than six times as much as Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) last month, according to new reports filed with the Federal Election Commission."
Make Code, Not War Care to know what brought the springtime rush toward a South Asian nuclear free-for-all to a screeching halt? Not shuttle diplomacy, not world condemnation -- no, it was a horde of Dell-wielding techies screaming to get the Indian leadership to chill.
I won't bother with a long aside about how trade and prosperity has subdued warlike tendencies among nations past and present -- you can read up on the McDonald's Theory of International Conflict for that. I'm just sad that all too many in that part of the world can't even write in their own languages, let alone C++.
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