The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney
| June 22nd, 2003When will I learn to stop trusting the mainstream media?
Seriously. I keep on thinking that I’ve gotten cynical and mistrustful enough. But then I find out that such-and-such a thing, which I assumed to be true merely because all the legitimate media sources said it was true, turns out to be a lie.
Which brings us to former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, one of my favorite American politicians. Like a lot of Greens, I’ve been hoping that the Green Party winds up endorsing McKinney rather than Nader as their 2004 presidential candidate.
McKinney lost her seat in the Democratic primary in a “racially polorized” vote (83% of Blacks voted for McKinney) to a Black Republican who ran as a Democrat. According to the New York Times (8/21/02), “McKinney’s [opponent] capitalized on the furor caused by Miss McKinney’s suggestion this year that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.”
That’s true - the widely-reported comment by McKinney killed her with white Democrats that election. (Another problem was crossover Republicans voting against McKinney in the primary, a practice made possible by Georgia law). I mean, accusing Bush of knowing about September 11th in advance and covering it up - that’s just insane. McKinney must be crazy. Mainstream Democrats abandoned McKinney in droves.
But it turns out that McKinney never said that. The press just made it up.
Greg Palast - who I sometimes thinks is the only real journalist still reporting on American elections - wasn’t able to find the quote or anything like it; not in transcripsts of McKinney interviews, not in the transcripts from the House of Representatives, not anywhere. The quote was just a lie - one that (at least temporarily) killed the career of an outspoken black, left-wing politician.
Palast also interviewed the Times reporter, who wasn’t able to tell him a source for the quote; the Times reporter just saws that the quote was “all over the place,” and so assumed it must be true.
Go read Palast’s entire article - there’s a lot there which will show you why I admire McKinney so much, and why I’m so pissed off, and why the so-called liberal media remains the racist, lying, white media it’s always been.
It’s been four days since Palast’s article was posted on AlterNet - a quick LexisNexis search shows, unsurprisingly, that no mainstream paper has picked up the false quote story. It’s likely none of them ever will.
One bit of good news, however - the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports “Cynthia McKinney Poised for Political Return,” either as a Congresswoman or as the Green Party nominee for the White House. From that article:
Bositis said that with at least two Republican candidates vying for the GOP nomination to replace retiring Sen. Zell Miller, Majette won’t be able to rely on Republican support in the Democratic primary, whose winner is expected to sail through the general election in the heavily Democratic 4th District.
A post-election analysis by the Journal-Constitution, however, found that voters clearly identifiable as Republicans accounted for only about 3,000 of the ballots cast in the election, less than one-sixth of Majette’s victory margin. Still, Charles Bullock, a political scientist at the University of Georgia who analyzed the contest, also found the vote was racially polarized, with McKinney drawing 83 percent of the African-American vote. Like Bositis, he predicts that a contested Republican primary in the Senate race could draw white Majette voters away from the Democratic primary next year.
So maybe a scummy lying so-called “liberal” press isn’t enough to keep a good woman down. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for Cynthia.
June 22nd, 2003 at 7:05 am
This is atrocious. It’s like the fact that Gore never claimed that “He invented the internet”. It was a massive exageration of something he said, but I believed it becase I heard it all over the news. The media is completely out of control if this story is true.
This comment was written by MDtoMN.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2003 at 2:49 pm
Reading Palast’s story it does sound like there were a lot of reasons that people in power may have wanted to shut McKinney up and only some of it has anything to do with 9/11.
This comment was written by Al-Muhajabah.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2003 at 11:00 pm
Weren’t there also some wild accusations of anti-semitism aimed at her?
This comment was written by Martin Wisse.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2003 at 11:35 pm
I vaguely recollect that her father said that “jay ee doubleyou ess” had cost her the election, or something like that. Which is an anti-semitic claim: the sets “anti-Arab racists” and “Jews” are not congruent, even if much of the money contributing to her defeat came from people who occupy the intersection of those sets. But the claim was not hers.
This comment was written by Mr Ripley.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2003 at 11:51 pm
Sigh. If I could be held responsible for every racist thing my Dad ever said, I don’t think I could run for leader of a Brownie Troop, much less leader of a state/country/etc.
Bleah.
This comment was written by Amy S..Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2003 at 6:31 am
Gullible, gullible. You should really think twice before swallowing something written by Greg Palast.
This is an AP wire report from April 12, 2002. Turns out she made her statement in an interview on a Berkeley radio station. (Gee, I wonder why a great investigative journalist like Palast didn’t turn it up in the Congressional Record?)
****************************************
Washington — Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) is calling for an investigation into whether President Bush and other government officials had advance notice of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 but did nothing to prevent them.
She added that “persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America’s new war.”
In a recent interview with a radio station in Berkeley, Calif., McKinney said: “We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th. . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? . . . What do they have to hide?”
McKinney declined to be interviewed Thursday, but she issued a statement saying: “I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case.”
*************************
Note carefully that McKinney never denied having made that statement on the Berkeley radio station, and her official press release on the matter merely continued along the same lines: “I don’t know if Bush is profiting from 9/11, but a complete investigation might reveal that to be the case.”
Don’t you think that if Palast were correct that McKinney would have denied making that statement in the first place?
Oh, and Palast is deliberately lying when he says that no quote from McKinney can be found in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. (He shouldn’t say things like that when other people have access to LEXIS). Here’s the full story from the AJC:
***********************************
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
April 18, 2002 Thursday, Home Edition
SECTION: DeKalb; Pg. 1JA
LENGTH: 507 words
HEADLINE: McKinney challenger eagerly steps to the plate
BYLINE: BEN SMITH
SOURCE: AJC
BODY:
Denise Majette took her first public swing at U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) last week after the incumbent she’s seeking to oust from office tossed her what looked like a political softball.
Political observers say McKinney may have handed Majette a hefty club when the five-term congresswoman suggested during a radio interview that President Bush may have had advance warning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and did nothing to stop them.
Majette, who has been quietly building her campaign since stepping down as a DeKalb State Court judge in January, pounced on McKinney’s remarks, saying they “reflect her entire congressional career: careless, off-the-wall and unproductive.”
“Clearly she is more concerned with pushing her own far-out ideas than with representing effectively the citizens of the 4th District,” Majette added.
It’s not clear what lasting effect McKinney’s latest controversial remarks will be. The five-term congresswoman has repeatedly skated to re-election despite her history of making public statements that have outraged many constituents.
The McKinney-Majette exchange clearly marks the beginning of what is certain to be a heated 4th Congressional District election.
Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist, believes McKinney remains the odds-on favorite to win the election. But he added that the congresswoman’s latest remarks about the Sept. 11 attacks aren’t helping her cause.
During a recent interview with a California station, McKinney said, “We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on Sept. 11. . . . What did [the Bush ] administration know and when did it know it, about the events of Sept. 11? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?”
Last fall, McKinney attracted nationwide scorn and some praise when she sent a letter to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to apologize for then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s rejection of the prince’s $10 million gift for World Trade Center victims. Giuliani turned down the gift after Bin Talal suggested that the U.S. foreign policy was partly to blame for the terrorist attacks.
McKinney asked the prince to consider donating the $10 million to African-American charities.
Black said it’s unlikely that McKinney’s latest remarks will cause any new damage to her Democratic political base, but it could prompt increasing numbers of non-Democrats to enter the Democratic Party primary to vote against her.
“Without the intervention of large numbers of Republicans, the odds still favor McKinney,” Black said. “But if she continues in this vein, and every month you have something like this, it could undermine her support.”
But John Evans, president of the DeKalb County NAACP, suggested it’s wrong to conclude that McKinney has committed an atrocious gaffe. “Elected officials are fully aware they are up for re-election and they are fully aware of what they are saying,” he said. “She knows what she’s doing.”
***************************
And here’s a transcript from CNN on April 12, 2002:
CARLSON: Thanks for defending the Constitution, Paul.
And now, time to reveal our quote of the day. Buckle your seat belts.
This Congresswoman is a Democrat from the Atlanta area. She last made national headlines when she criticized Rudy Giuliani for refusing a $10 million Saudi donation for victims of September 11th, and said, U.S. Middle East policy was partly to blame for the attacks.
She is Cynthia McKinney. And she has a conspiracy theory you won’t believe — hopefully.
Here’s what she told a Berkeley, California radio station.
“What did this administration know, and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew? And why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? What do they have to hide?”
This is how the White House reacted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: All I can tell you is the congresswoman must be running for the Hall of Fame of the Grassy Knoll Society.
I really don’t have anything to say that would lend any credibility to what she said.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Now, Paul, here you have Cynthia McKinney accusing, essentially, the president of being an accessory to mass murder, and doing it for profit.
Now, I can’t imagine a more revolting public statement, and I hope that you’ll right now on this show disavow her as a fellow Democrat.
BEGALA: Here. Sometimes you just have to get under the table, so — duck and cover. Yeah, that was nuts, come on, …
CARLSON: Well, you win (UNINTELLIGIBLE) points.
BEGALA: … Cynthia McKinney ought to know better.
This comment was written by Joe.*****************************************
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June 23rd, 2003 at 7:54 am
Well, Joe, if you had bothered reading the Alternet article, you would have found the following paragraph:
According to NPR, her “loony” statement was made on the radio news show Counterspin. (Not incidentally, Counterspin is produced by an NPR competitor, the nonprofit Pacifica Radio Network.) I have the transcript; it’s on the web. Her charge that Bush knew about the September 11 attacks in advance and deliberately covered it up can’t be found.
What can be read is her call for a follow-up on the revelations from the BBC and USA Today on the information about a growing terror threat ignored by Bush . . . and whether the policy response – war, war, war – was protecting America or simply enriching Bush’s big arms industry donors and business partners. Fair questions. But asking them is dangerous . . . to one’s political career.
Of course, Palast isn’t right - the show was Flashpoints (3/25/02) (and the Fletcher School is part of Tufts, not Princeton - those little errors Palast makes do annoy me). Here is the transcript he mentions. Nowhere in it will you find the suggestion that George Bush knew about 9/11 in advance and let it happen in order to profit politically or economically. Yes, she did make the statement you have quoted several times, along with another one noting that many “persons close to this Administration are poised to make huge profits off America’s new war,” many of them being heavily invested in defense industries. That statement, however, does not seem to “accus[e], essentially, the president of being an accessory to mass murder, and doing it for profit.”
Here is a article I stumbled across while looking up the transcript, which I think summarizes the situation better than I can:
The truth was that McKinney quite accurately predicted — months before it broke in the press — that Bush had extensive intelligence on likely terrorist attacks and failed to act. And McKinney was equally accurate in saying that Bush insiders would reap windfalls from slaughter.
However, nowhere did McKinney ever link the two statements.
And, of course, we’re still waiting on the investigation into the intelligence breakdown…
Oh, yes, here are the specific paragraphs from the transcript:
…Moreover, persons close to this Administration are poised to make huge profits off America’s new war. Former President Bush sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. The Los Angeles Times reports that on a single day last month, Carlyle earned $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries, the Army’s fifth-largest contractor. The stock offering was well timed: Carlyle officials say they decided to take the company public only after the Sept. 11 attacks. The stock sale cashed in on increased congressional support for hefty defense spending, including one of United Defense’s cornerstone weapon programs.
Now is the time for our elected officials to be held accountable. Now is the time for the media to be held accountable. Why aren’t the hard questions being asked? We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, delivered one such warning. Those engaged in unusual stock trades immediately before September 11 knew enough to make millions of dollars from United and American airlines, certain insurance and brokerage firms’ stocks. What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?…
This comment was written by David Schaich.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2003 at 8:32 am
Billy McKinney’s hostility toward Jews has been a problem for Cynthia McKinney before. I suspect it would be dismissed if he weren’t a politician himself, and often involved in her campaigns. The voters sent him packing in the primary, too.
At the time, I didn’t see anything particularly galling in McKinney’s remarks. I still don’t. But I’m ambivalent about her loss. She was a reliable vote, but there was very little else to recommend her. Majette - who, if her voting record is any indication, is as Republican as John Lewis - is as reliable a vote, and she doesn’t have McKinney’s baggage.
This comment was written by Drew.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2003 at 10:29 pm
I voted for Nader the last two times around. But I hope that if the Dems nominate someone who will be a vast improvement over Bush (Howard Dean, perhaps), that the Greens will consider not running a candidate. Yes, yes, I am well aware that Dean doesn’t take the Green position on every issue, and even Kucinich can be objected to because of his pro-life record, but come on, folks. Bush is a nightmare. If he gets another four years, we may not even have elections any more by the time he’s through. Surely there is some Democrat who could be acceptable to Greens.
Now, if the Dems nominate someone like Lieberman, it’s another story entirely; the man can barely be distinguished from Bush.
This comment was written by Joe Buck.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2003 at 10:43 pm
The media lies, too.
This comment was written by I protest..I don’t have much time tonight, between repairing computers and searching for a job, but I want to express my outrage at yet another set of lies. Amp at Alas, a blog tells us about “The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney.”…
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June 25th, 2003 at 4:09 am
The Greens can’t “not run a candidate”; if they did that, they’d lose their place on the ballot in many states.
I’m hoping the Greens will run a candidate who’ll be willing to do what Nader should have done in 2000 - make a deal with the Democrats (e.g., not campaigning in swing states in exchange for something the Greens want).
I can’t speak for Greens in general, but personally I find Kucinich very acceptable, and am distressed by how few “progressive” democrats seem willing to support him rather than the far less progressive Dean.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 7:39 am
“Democrat Implies Sept. 11 Administration Plot” by Juliet Eilperin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34565-2002Apr11?language=printer
Palast doesn’t mention that article. And he never provides what Mckinney actually said on that radio show. Also…
“The September 11 X-Files” by David Corn
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=66
Corn criticizes her too. So I want that transcript of the radio appearance. Palast says in the Alternet article that she was on FAIR’s Counterspin radio show, but that CANNOT be true cuz she has NEVER appeared on that show. David Corn says it was MARCH 25 on some Pacifica show.
I like Greg Palast, and if he is wrong on this then that makes him VERY questionable.
Lastly, if McKinney never said it why didn’t she say “I NEVER SAID THAT!” Instead she gave a House speech that was basically damage control.
This comment was written by Walterthump.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 8:42 am
Alright guys I did a Google of “Cynthia McKinney Pacifica” and I clicked on the first hit. Palast is still clean, I guess…
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/flashpoints/flashpoints_030415.html
This comment was written by Walterthump.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 8:43 am
As I mentioned earlier, here is the transcript for McKinney’s interview. It was on Flashpoints, not Counterspin.
This comment was written by David Schaich.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 8:55 am
Okay, I just read the above comments by Joe and David Schaich. Thanks guys,
And if you LISTEN to the interview, she doesn’t accuse Bush of murdering anyone. She said “Who else knew? And why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?”
Download the interview:
http://www.flashpoints.net/realaudio/fp20020325.ra
The McKinney speech and interview starts at 30:00
She is talking about ANYBODY that might have know about the attacks, not the Bush Administration.
This comment was written by Walterthump.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 12:13 pm
**I’m hoping the Greens will run a candidate who’ll be willing to do what Nader should have done in 2000 - make a deal with the Democrats (e.g., not campaigning in swing states in exchange for something the Greens want).**
You know, I hate to keep beating a dead donkey, but it seems silly to talk about what “Nader should have done” isolated from what “Gore should have done.” Gore and his handlers behaved like smug, bullying assholes toward the Greens once they deemed them a sufficient threat. And before that, they ignored them altogether. It would, obviously, take two to have danced this particular tango. And call me nuts, but somehow I’d expect the more powerful “partner” in the compromise “dance” to have put the idea out there. I’m just weird that way.
And you know, if Gore had lost anyway, it simply would be yet more excuse for the DLC to drag the party further into Lieber-land. I think they’ve got more than enough excuses, Thanks.
Bleah.
This comment was written by Amy S..Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 6:58 pm
Regarding “it takes two to tango,” you’re quite right, Amy.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2003 at 7:24 pm
Well, as long as you’re determined not to entertain the masses with a big fight, I’ll admit that I could probably stand voting for Kucinich. If he miraculously got the nod, AND didn’t end up with that same DLC-pod makeover that Pelosi got, AND the Greens nominated some total asshole, AND… ahhh, you know… ;)
This comment was written by Amy S..Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2003 at 12:05 pm
Is that what happened to Pelosi? A DLC-pod makeover? I’ve been wondering what had happened to her. Very much un-progressive recently. I guess that explains it.
This comment was written by SOB.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2003 at 3:25 pm
TAPPED has posted on this subject:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2003/06/index.html#001202
This comment was written by Walterthump.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2003 at 3:24 am
TAPPED has posted astonishingly badly on this subject. Reading McKinney’s statements, for instance, a lot of what she was talking about concerned the 1998 Embassy bombings, and is being spun by right-wing liars as being about 9/11.
And TAPPED not only links supportively to said liars, but proceeds to talk about everyone involved (including Pacifica Radio) as if, being mildly left-wing, they are necessarily insane.
I’ve never thought that much of TAPPED, but I confess I don’t think I’ll waste much time on their website any more.
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September 30th, 2004 at 4:49 am
“Then, the other issue that saddens me is the fact that the former President, President Bush’s daddy, sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. And so we get this Presidency of questionable legitimacy requesting a nearly unprecedented amount of money to go into a defense budget for defense spending that would directly benefit his father! Where is the…where are the brakes on transparency and corruption that I see happening as a result of the fact that the President’s father stands to make money off of the very request that the President has made on what I would call a specious argument, saying that we needed to increase defense spending because of September 11th, when we now know that there were enough warnings to September 11th that we didn’t even have to experience September 11th at all, at least that’s the way it is now beginning to appear”
So she doesn’t say that Bush knew about 9/11 and did nothing so his father could profit from it.
Gotta give her credit for not saying it directly, but she really does do a dance ALL AROUND the topic. She doesn’t say ‘the answer is FOUR’ but she does say ‘we have two plus two’.
She says Poppa Bush stood to make money on increased defence spending, and that George W. Bush was warned about Sept 11, so why didn’t he do anything about it?
Keep in mind we all *know* that all White Republicans just LOVE to make money at the expense of anything, or anybody, else.
S0… that means… you add two plus two.
But she didn’t say FOUR.
Clever Girl.
This comment was written by Adam.Report this comment to the moderators