Rank has it's privilages


A Member of Congress goes too far
I was going to let this one slide, but it got just too good yesterday.

As you probably heard, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney allegedly stuck a capital police officer.

I'm going to take this one out of sequence.

It was a paragraph like this that first caught my attention.

McKinney's press conference marked the first time she has spoken publicly about the incident, in which the officer, not recognizing McKinney as a member of Congress, tried to stop her from walking around a security checkpoint, which members are routinely allowed to do.

Now that is an interesting assumption, don't you think? Members of Congress should be routinely exempted from the laws that they inflict on the rest of us?

And no, this isn't the first time. It was decades before Congress extended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to apply to Congressional staffers. Many of the guidelines in the in the internal revenue code are just beyond the maximum Congressional salary. And overtime regulations still don't apply to Congressional staffs, not to mention some of the book keeping that would land private sector accountants in prison.

By itself, that isn't enough to justify an entry.

But then we get to this bit.

"Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is ... a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin," said one of McKinney's lawyers, James Myart Jr.

Not to mention this.

"She's a victim," said Pressley. "For Ms. McKinney not to be immediately recognized by the Capitol police was, in itself, an insult. She's recognizable from around the world, so in D.C., our capital, you would expect that almost any police officer would recognize her, with all the controversy attached to her name."

Pressley said a Capitol Hill police officer — "like someone who just came off a plantation" — once treated some black children he brought to Washington "like animals."

Michael Raffauf, one of McKinney's attorneys, suggested that powerful Republican lawmakers who run Congress may be behind the accusations and possible criminal charges against McKinney.

"I find it highly unusual that this thing has gotten so blown out of proportion," he said.

This isn't the first time that Congresswoman McKinney has played the race card to either defend her own actions or to attack someone else.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - April 1, 2006 at 09:02 AM  Tag


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