It’s somehow appropriate that within the same week two remarkable events happened. One, the 9/11 Commission released a long-awaited report that neither exonerates nor excoriates the Bush administration. Two, the congresswoman who accused President Bush of knowing about 9/11 beforehand, yet allowed it to happen for political purposes, won a Democrat primary and is thus on her way back to power.
That’s right. The reprehensible yet irrepressible Cynthia McKinney may be coming back to Washington after being exiled to the political wilderness.
Two years ago–which means prior to the invasion of Iraq–McKinney went out on a bit of a limb. In an interview with a radio station in Berkeley, California, McKinney declared the war on terror a sham and George W. Bush an accessory to mass murder:
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?
Much has changed in two years. Accusing President Bush of lying and allowing terrorist attacks to happen for political gain was big stuff back then. Nowadays, Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe says he believes the war in Afghanistan was really all about laying an oil pipe across that benighted country and it barely makes a blip; two years ago, few outside the lunatic Democrat enclaves would utter such thoughts in public. Howard Dean’s run for the White House began to implode when he echoed the “Bush KNEW” conspiracy theory. McKinney was thus ahead of her time, a regular prophet for the wild-eyed Left. And like Dean, her campaign nose-dived and she lost. But that was then.
Of course, something else has also changed in two years. The final report of the 9/11 Commission investigation proves that McKinney’s 2002 assessment of that terrible day–and thus the war–is dead wrong. There were no numerous warnings, only little signs and portents, mostly kept away from law-enforcement officials barred from intelligence sharing. The Bush administration could not possibly have warned anyone to get out of the way of an attack it didn’t see coming. The administration had nothing to hide.
But McKinney did. She accepted large and frequent political donations from Islamist donors and organizations. They kept her campaign awash in cash. She was their best friend on Capitol Hill.
McKinney ended up losing the Democratic primary in 2002 to Denise Majette. Majette rode to victory largely on the negative publicity that flowed McKinney’s way both when the “Bush KNEW” accusation made national news and when her anti-Semitic and pro-Islamist beliefs were exposed. She supports Yasser Arafat’s intifada. She was the only American to refuse to walk out on the 2001 Durban Conference on Racism, a United Nations confab that swiftly descended into an abyss of anti-American and anti-Semitic rancor. She has often taken to the floor of the House to defend her friends in radical Islamic circles–when she isn’t busy attacking American policies. She has taken donations from a handful of “charities” the U.S. government has shut down for allegedly funneling cash to terrorists. And her father blamed his own August 2002 political defeat on Jews, who he claimed had “bought everybody.” He even helpfully spelled it out–”J-E-W-S”–just in case anyone got confused.
And now Cynthia McKinney is back representing Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District (which is 70 percent registered Democrat, rendering a primary victory there as good as a win in the general election). Vindicated, she says, by the voters who are returning her to office.
Not quite. She only won because Majette decided to run for the Senate, so vacating her seat in the House. McKinney won primarily on name recognition and voter amnesia. And she is already reverting to form. According to radio talk-show host and blogger Neil Boortz, McKinney’s shock troops pushed and shoved a reporter from a radio station known for filing fair, and thus unflattering, stories about McKinney’s antics from a post-campaign celebration earlier this week. It seems two years in the wilderness has made Cynthia a bit testy.
But no matter. Radical Islam will get its voice back in the halls of power. America, prepare to be simultaneously entertained and disgusted as the most virulent and anti-American and anti-Semitic elected politician in the nation rejoins the Democrat fold. Two years ago, the Democrats may have been a bit embarrassed to have such a noxious presence on their side of the aisle, but much has changed in two years. Who knows–she just might get a standing ovation and a slap on the back from McAuliffe himself at the next caucus meeting.
–Bryan Preston is coauthor of JunkYardBlog.