MS. MCKINNEY GOES TO WASHINGTON

My family flew out to Southern California for Christmas last year. It’s always an adventure flying with my wife and six kids. There is so much luggage to check, so many kids to keep an eye on, just, so many details. And Homeland Security hasn’t made it any easier! You have to stand in this line and then in that line. You have to take your shoes off. If the metal detector buzzes you have to go back through again. If it keeps buzzing you get wanded and frisked. God forbid you’re running late for your flight. You may as well give it up. We were just a little behind schedule for our flight home. We arrived only an hour and a half before our flight was scheduled to depart. I remember when I could make a flight as long as I was there about half and hour before take off! Thanks be to God, they held the flight for us.

But you know what? I keep telling myself, “I’d rather go through all this hassle at the airport and feel safe. If they catch anybody with an exploding shoe then it’s worth it all!” I’m not terribly patriotic, but I would rather not become a hero trying to take down a terrorist. (After all, alma mater is running out of buildings to name!) I’m willing to do my part and smile through all of the indignities in the name of safe air travel.

Not Cynthia McKinney! She can’t be bothered by security outside the congressional office buildings. She’s so important that every Capitol police officer ought to be able to recognize her as she rushes by him on her way to an important meeting! She is so busy that she can’t be expected to wear her Congressional ID lapel pin. She takes it as an insult if she is stopped by an officer. It doesn’t matter to her that the man had a job to do.

I’m trying to imagine what would happen to one of us if we walked around a metal detector outside a DC office building and then refused to stop when the Capitol police officer called us. I would expect the officer to chase me down, knock me to the ground, and put me in hand cuffs. I would expect that I would be taken to some station where I would be considered guilty until proven stupid. I would expect to hear little clicks on my home phone for many months to come.

Not Cynthia McKinney! When the officer touched her arm she hit him with her cell phone! She started screaming racism! “White cop! Black woman! They never recognize me! They harass me because I am a black woman!” Nope! Cynthia McKinney is special and the laws put in place to protect the other members of Congress shouldn’t apply to her.

Cynthia McKinney. Just one more embarrassment to my party!

You guys are great! Thanks for stopping by!