by James Sandrolini

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney represents something the powers that be are historically used to trampling underfoot: a woman, a black woman from the South at that.

After the Georgia Democrat raised concerns recently over the Bush Administration's disturbing secrecy over 9-11 intelligence, she was hit with a landslide of crude invective and slander from an enraged D.C. punditocracy. Who does she think she is? How dare she question our government! This is a nation at war and loose lips sink ships!

McKinney won notoriety by proclaiming American citizens had every right to a full investigation into what the Administration knew and when it knew it concerning the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

She also astutely pointed out the fact that the powerful Carlyle Group's members have been unusually active in the wake of last year's attacks. She noted the Carlyle Group's former top dog Republicans like George Bush, Sr., Frank Carlucci, James Baker and Richard Darman, are playing major lobbying roles for this military and telecommunications investment firm.

McKinney noted a recent Los Angeles Times article that reported that on a single day in 2001 the Carlyle Group pulled in a healthy $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries. More disturbing is the group's immediate post-9-11 activity. McKinney comments, "The Carlyle officials say they decided to take the company public only after the 9-11 attacks."

On the radio program Flashpoints, McKinney probed even deeper into White House chicanery, citing the inexplicable secrecy over Department of Energy meetings with Dick Cheney, the far-reaching tentacles of the Enron fiasco, and the very legitimacy of the Bush Administration since the rough facsimile of democracy in Florida 2000.

Perhaps many have already forgotten the 57,000 Florida voters falsely accused of felonies who were magically "scrubbed" from the state's voter rolls, thanks to Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

McKinney has not forgotten. "We know that most of the people on that list were innocent of crimes. The list was a phony. And worse, the majority of these rightful voters were people of color and likely Democratic voters," she argues. Considering Katherine Harris declared Bush the winner in her state by a razor-thin 537 votes, had these disenfranchised individuals been granted their right to vote, history today might be wearing a different face altogether.

Standing on a grassy knoll in Roswell, New Mexico

The big questions McKinney is asking of our government are in perfect keeping with the "eternal vigilance" needed to maintain a democracy. After the horrific destruction of 9-11, the fact that no investigation of any kind has been forwarded by the terrorist-battling White House is unconscionable.

McKinney was bewildered by the inertia of our government on this all-consuming matter: "We hold thorough public inquiries into rail disasters, plane crashes, and even natural disasters in order to understand what happened and to prevent them from happening again or minimizing the tragic effects when they do. Why then does the Administration remain steadfast in its opposition to an investigation into the biggest terrorism attack upon our nation?"

These are urgent questions any congressperson, patriotic citizen, or responsible journalist should be asking themselves — and the White House.

But beyond the remarkable support McKinney is receiving in her district, McKinney is not welcome in Congress' country club. Senator Zell Miller, fellow Georgia Democrat, has gone all out to distance himself from McKinney's "loony statement" and sees her position as "very dangerous and irresponsible."

It gets more nasty. Columnist Jonah Goldberg excoriated McKinney by claiming she is "dumber than rock salt and more repugnant than Yasser Arafat's three-week-old underwear." The ever-colorful New York Post dubbed the congresswoman "Spacewoman McKinney."

According to Salim Muwakkil in his April 22 Chicago Tribune column, even the Congressional Black Caucus is stepping back from McKinney's too-hot-to-handle polemic. Many threatened politicians on the right arrogantly dismiss McKinney as just another conspiracy theory nutcase. Chris Ullman, spokesperson for the Carlyle Group, snipes, "Did she say those things while standing on a grassy knoll in Roswell, New Mexico?" In reality, the only conspiracy McKinney is hinting at is one of disturbing silence by the Bush White House.

Kathleen Parker, Armchair Assassin

But by far the most egregious and offensive vitriol over McKinney came from conservative columnist Kathleen Parker on the Tribune's op-ed page. Her April 17 column, "A McKinney for idiocy in office," is a hard-line rightwing diatribe that pushes the envelope of racism and character defamation.

Parker began her article by mentioning the Darwin Awards, given to individuals "too stupid to live." She offered up the first award to Palestinian "suicide bombers" who "purify the gene pool by removing themselves from it."

Parker managed to get away from jokes about suicide bombing just long enough to award the latest Darwin to Cynthia McKinney. She was "hands-down winner for stupidest thing ever said while in public office for her recent assertion that President Bush knew about the 9-11 attacks in advance and did nothing to prevent them."

Parker then further remarked on McKinney's grilling of the president: "Not only is McKinney's comment idiotic, absurd, and — under other circumstances, hilarious if you like slapstick — it's also dangerous. Would that we could ignore such ignoramuses but we can't because Ôthey' won't."

"They" being the terrorists, of course. Parker is telling us McKinney is a virtual accomplice to the terrorists before returning with another crude joke at the expense of Palestinians. Parker implored, "What compels young women to blow themselves up? An eternity free of Arafat's decaying visage?"

Not one to shy away from creative metaphors, Parker wrote: "Let's call a farm implement a farm implement [cleverly skirting around the word "spade" here] and translate that for the nice folks back home: McKinney has made yet another over-the-top publicity grab, not yet grasping the fact that most Americans consider her an imbecile."

Finally, Parker showed her true red, white and blue colors. She denounced McKinney as a "dangerous fool who needs to be stifled. Not forcefully, of course. But couldn't we get this woman a job at Walmart, greeting the public she so desperately courts? Wishfully thinking, couldn't we just impeach her?"

Just like a conservative. If you detest a particular Democrat's modus operandi, just impeach them. It works!

Finally, as the venom started to run dry, Parker ended on this inspirational note: "I realize you can't impeach a public official for dragging down the national IQ, but you can impeach for treason. Once McKinney's hysterical rant is translated into Arabic for a vulnerable, gullible and homicidal public [i.e. Palestinians and Arabs in general], she's on their team, not ours."

Senator Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, and former Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan would be most proud of Parker's brand of character assassination.

Kathleen Parker, loyal devotee to a shadowy, cryptic Bush White House — if not exactly the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — brands McKinney and any others demanding full accountability for the greatest tragedy ever to befall this nation as a traitor, an imbecile, a dangerous fool, and "too stupid to live."

Yet the very people Parker denounces happen to be practicing the highest form of democracy: a watchful citizenry on high-alert for the cancer gnawing away at the heart of our Constitution. Salim Muwakkil sums up the McKinney situation perfectly by warning, "Before we lynch Rep. McKinney, let's remember that the people we honor for moral courage are more likely to defy conventional wisdom than conform to it."

Here's hoping Cynthia McKinney and millions of Americans relish their right to beg to differ — as soon as possible. Perhaps it's time for Kathleen Parker and her ilk among media and government to appreciate the diversity of thought and conviction that make this country what it is..