[News] Racial Profiling from the Halls of Congress to the Studios of MSNBC

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/kanazi04062006.html

April 6, 2006

Racial Profiling from the Halls of Congress to the Studios of MSNBC

The Assault on Cynthia McKinney

By REMI KANAZI

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 McKinneyThe 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 Israel 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 
<http://www.PoeticInjustice.net/>www.PoeticInjustice.net He lives in 
New York City as a Palestinian American freelance writer, poet and 
performer and can reached via email at 
<mailto:remroum at gmail.com>mailto:remroum at gmail.com


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