The Irreplaceable Cynthia McKinney: Outgoing Rep. Smacks Bush with
Impeachment Papers
http://www.blackagendareport.com/008/008_gf_mckinney_irreplaceable.php
by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

'Objectively, most African Americans are 'McKinney Democrats.'

'To my fellow Americans, as I leave this Congress, it is in your hands --
to hold your representatives accountable, and to show those with the
courage to stand for what is right, that they do not stand alone.' Rep.
Cynthia McKinney on U.S. House floor, December 8, 2006

Cynthia McKinney will soon exit the U.S. House of Representatives, her
second departure from Capitol Hill since voters first chose her to
represent a majority Black, suburban Atlanta district in 1992. In parting,
McKinney once again showed herself to be an irreplaceable presence in the
Congress -- the only Member to dare submit a resolution to impeach
President George W. Bush, along with Vice-President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

To borrow an accolade bestowed on Paul Robeson, the great African American
singer and political activist [1898-1976 ], McKinney proved to be 'the
tallest tree in the forest.'

'Confronted with the most lawless presidency in the history of the
Republic, the thoroughly cowed Democratic 'opposition' shriveled into
inconsequentiality.'

Evidence of the Bush regime's multitudinous crimes has for years been
available in abundance to every conscientious citizen and all 535 Members
of Congress. Yet, confronted with the most lawless presidency in the
history of the Republic -- a White House even more criminal than that of
Andrew Jackson, who defied a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring banishment
of the Cherokee to Oklahoma, in 1832 -- the thoroughly cowed Democratic
'opposition' shriveled into inconsequentiality.

Except for Cynthia McKinney.

It's that simple.

If we don't support our own independent voices, who will?

Not that McKinney is out of step with the broad American public on the
issue of impeachment. Rather, as David Swanson, of the excellent website
AfterDowningStreet.org writes:

'she alone has spoken for the 51 percent of Americans who Newsweek
says want Bush impeached. A considerably higher percentage of
Americans would, if asked, almost certainly acknowledge that the
abuses with which McKinney charges Bush et al. have, in fact, been
committed by them and are impeachable offenses. That is to say, there
are those who recognize the grounds for impeachment but don't want to
see them pursued. There are even those who want impeachment pursued
but wish it were not being pursued by McKinney.'

But in all these long years since Bush?s criminality has become plain to
everyone with a brain, no one in congress but Cynthia McKinney stepped
forward to say, 'The Emperor is a Gangster, and must be deposed'.

Even before the March, 2003 Iraq invasion, many progressive hopes for
impeachment were hitched to Detroit Congressman John Conyers, the ranking
Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and veteran of the Nixon
impeachment proceedings. If any federal legislator deserves a lifetime
achievement award, it is Conyers, who has maintained a sterling record of
progressivism since his freshman year, 1965. Finally, in late 2005, it
seemed the 'Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus' was ready to make his
move. McKinney and 36 other congresspersons joined Conyers in
co-sponsoring a resolution to create 'a select committee to investigate
the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional
authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and
countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make
recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.' It sounded
like the impeachment train was about to roll.

Then, just before the midterm elections, The Dean definitively folded his
the tent, caving to Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's command from on-high:
'Impeachment is off the table.'

Everybody's table, that is, but the irreplaceable lawmaker, Cynthia McKinney.

A Matter of Principle

Progressive congresspersons have been effectively muzzled under Pelosi,
ironically a former co-chair of the Progressive Congressional Caucus.
What's left of the progressive wing of the Congressional Black Caucus has
been reduced to an unprecedented state of disarray, incapable of finding
its own voice, and constantly warned to avoid association with its most
independent Member, McKinney. With the slavish assistance of outgoing CBC
chairman Mel Watt (D-NC), Pelosi succeeded in isolating McKinney from many
of her Caucus peers. Facing possible indictment on charges of striking a
Capitol Hill policeman, McKinney was left to twist in the wind for most of
her unsuccessful 2006 primary re-election campaign. Pelosi's unspoken
admonishment to Black lawmakers: don't upset white voters in the run-up to
midterm elections through any display of solidarity with the besieged
Member from Georgia.

But Black voters have never been repelled by Cynthia McKinney's brand of
politics. She won an overwhelming share of the African American vote in
2002 and 2006, despite losing both primary elections. There can be no
doubt that her impeachment resolution was met with approval by the vast
majority of Blacks, the most staunchly anti-Bush bloc in the nation, by
far.

'Black voters have never been repelled by Cynthia McKinney's brand of
politics.'

Perhaps most emblematic of her consistent, principled political behavior,
was McKinney's inclusion of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as
deserving of impeachment, along with her bosses, Bush and Cheney. House
Resolution 1106 reads:

'Condoleezza Rice, in violation of her constitutional duty to share
and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the
Congress, as former National Security Adviser to the President, did
play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by
repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq's alleged
weapons of mass destruction program'. Whereby Condoleezza Rice 'did
commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States
of America.'

Less than the 'high crimes' charged against Bush and Cheney, but sufficient.

Condoleezza Rice, for no good reason, is far less despised among African
Americans than Bush and Cheney. But principle requires that Rice should
also face congressional indictment. How many members of the Congressional
Black Caucus would buck the historical Black current that celebrates
'Black faces in high places,' no matter what their crimes? One, that we
can be sure of: Cynthia McKinney.

In their eternal quest to erase independent Black political expression,
corporate media, corporate Democrats and corporate mercenaries of all
varieties seek to portray legitimate African American activist/politicians
as 'crazed,' 'overly emotional,' and 'out of step with the Black
mainstream.' In reality, these hostile forces attempt to dry up the stream
of Black militancy by separating African Americans from their own
authentic voices.

Here is Cynthia McKinney's authentic voice, from an interview with Black
Agenda Report (BAR):

BAR: In a parting shot, you put impeachment back 'on the table.' Why'd you
do that?

McK: It was the morally and politically correct thing to do. Everyone
should be held to the standard of telling the truth and obeying the laws.

BAR: Would you have preferred that this action have been taken by a
combination of congresspersons, rather than you alone?

McK: I wanted to do it back in 2002 when I left Congress the first time,
but my mother pleaded with me not to do it, because of the retaliation
that would surely come. So I succumbed to my mother's wishes, and didn't
do it. It should have been done almost from the very outset of the
administration. The repeated crimes against the American people, the lies,
the lack of accountability, the squandering of the public treasury, left
our country not only morally bankrupt but financially bankrupt as well.

BAR: During that whole period, did you defer to others in the Caucus and
elsewhere in Congress, hoping that others might, or should, be the ones to
introduce a resolution of impeachment?

McK: I can't answer for other national leaders, I can only answer for my
conscience. This was an act of conscience on my part, something that I
thought was necessary to do. The laws of our land, the Constitution, are
not the exclusive property of a private club to decide, well, this doesn't
apply to us, so therefore, we're going to violate the people's trust -- and
then, other members of the club say, that's OK, we'll let you get away
with it. That's not right! And that's not what the American people expect.
The American people expect that, if you pass a law, everybody is subject
to the law. The Constitution is the highest law of the land. Of all
people, certainly the president, the vice-president, the secretary of
state shouldn't be engaged in activity that violates the public trust.

'The laws of our land, the Constitution, are not the exclusive property of
a private club.'

BAR: What was your reaction when Congresswoman Pelosi said in no uncertain
terms that impeachment was 'off the table,' and did you feel that that was
a kind of marching order for the Democratic Caucus as a whole?

McK: It clearly was a marching order, just as 'stay away from the Select
Panel on Katrina' [another Pelosi directive to Democrats] was a marching
order. And so you had members of the Democratic Caucus, including members
of the Black Caucus, staying away from the Katrina panel, even though
there was an opportunity to do good work by participating on the panel.

BAR: Now that you?re about to become a 'civilian' for the second time, do
you think that Pelosi's 'marching order' on impeachment will stand for the
next two years?

McK: That depends on the American people. This administration obviously
has not been checked, and will not be checked, by the Democratic majority
in the House and the Senate. It may be tempered, but it won't be checked.
And that's a shame. As one elected official told me, when you get elected
you get the keys to the file cabinet -- but you're not supposed to tell
what's in the file cabinet. Well, I told what was in the file cabinet, but
for some people it?s more important to have the keys than it is to clean
out the files.

'McKinney Democrats'

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, who has often
collaborated with McKinney in Katrina-related activities, proudly
proclaims himself a 'McKinney Democrat'? a category that objectively
applies to most African Americans. The masses of Blacks are as suspicious
as McKinney of the Bush regime?s conduct, pre- and post-9/11. They favor
an immediate end to the war in Iraq, and view the occupation in the
context of historical U.S. and European adventures and usurpations in the
non-white world. There is no question in most African American minds that
the current U.S. regime is a servant of the rich; that Bush, Cheney (and
Condoleezza) lie as a matter of policy; and that only a thoroughgoing
overhaul of society can finally make things right for Black folks. Black
public opinion most closely matches world opinion, which holds that the
Bush administration is a danger to mankind as a whole.

So, where do the 'McKinney Democrats' -- Black, white and brown -- go, now
that McKinney is leaving the House? Where, and Who, is their beacon, the
lawmaker whose very presence tends to say, 'There is hope yet, for this
corrupt and racist electoral system'?

If no ready answer comes to mind, then you should understand why Cynthia
McKinney is irreplaceable.

BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford can be reached at Glen.Ford (at)
BlackAgendaReport.com. Be sure to substitute @ for (at)