- Dealing with Ann Coulter's post-September 11 blathering
was bad enough. But we could forgive Ann - just the teensiest bit - because
she had just lost her best friend, Barbara Olson, and besides, even on
a good day, Ann Coulter is clearly insane.
-
- But now it appears that the Bush administration's Propaganda
Dominatrix has some competition in Kathleen Parker, a woman who has all
the feral charm of a wolverine in heat and, apparently, all the reasoning
ability of a clam. I am referring, of course, to her recent attacks on
one of the few responsible adults in Congress, Cynthia McKinney.
-
- Fortunately for us, Ms. Parker's arguments are completely
devoid of substance, thereby offering us ample opportunity to just shoot
the living hell out of them.
-
- The first half of her latest column, 'McKinney's Minions
March to a Different Drummer Indeed,' is entirely devoted to hurling personal
epithets and therefore can be dismissed in its entirety.
-
- The second half, however, contains her great 'Aha!' moment,
her stunning revelation, the payoff for grueling seconds of investigative
journalism. For it is here we discover that Cynthia McKinney - gasp! -
received a campaign contribution from Abdurahman Alamoudi, 'founder and
former executive director of the American Muslim Council,' and a staunch
'axis-of-evil' kind of guy if there ever was one.
-
- It is a good thing for Ms. Parker that her fans are not
the sharpest knives in the drawer. If they were, perhaps they might discover
that this same group of swarthy characters endorsed - gasp! - George W.
Bush for president. Yes, it is true. The Hamas-and-Hezbollah-for-lunch-bunch
were some of Dubya's biggest fans. At least they were before September
11. (As an interesting, and sadly ironic, aside, the primary reason the
American Muslim Council supported Bush was because he "challenged
the use of 'secret' evidence at the second presidential debate.")
-
- Ms. Parker, I am sure, would be quick to point out that
George the Lesser returned Alamoudi's campaign contribution, (and, yes,
he received one), and good for him because it would have looked really
bad if he kept his after Hillary returned hers, (first, by the way). But
- BUT - you have to wonder why, three days after September 11, the Global
Village Idiot trotted out none other than Abdurahman Alamoudi at the National
Cathedral prayer service for the victims of the attack. Surely, of the
estimated six million American Muslims, he could have found one single
Islamic leader that would have been, shall we say, in better taste.
-
- And then there is the matter of long-time Bush supporter,
Grover Norquist. According to the October 4 issue of the Boston Phoenix,
"Norquist's lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC, was officially
registered as a lobbyist for the Islamic Institute as well as for Abdurahman
Alamoudi."
-
- Public records show that Alamoudi has done more than
$20,000 worth of business with Norquist's firm. Which, by Parker's own
twisted logic, makes fellow conservative, Grover Norquist, about twenty
times the terrorist-lover that Ms. McKinney supposedly is. And I have yet
to hear that John Ashcroft has put Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC on the
terrorist watch list.
-
- Astute readers have already made the point that all Cynthia
McKinney did was call for a thorough investigation of September 11 - something
the Bush administration has been loathe to do. The fact is, that upon setting
up a committee for the explicit purpose of investigating the tragedy, the
very first thing Bush and company did was to clip the wings of the investigators.
Their directive, in the end, was not to find out what went wrong, but instead,
to merely make recommendations for preventing future incidents.
-
- Now I ask you - what earthly sense does that make? In
essence, Bush was telling the committee to make suggestions on how to fix
something when the cause of that broken 'something' was not yet determined.
This is sensational public relations, but thank goodness George decided
to become a politician and not a brain surgeon. ("I don't know what's
causing your headache, Mrs. Dettweiler, but let's just operate on your
prefrontal lobe and see if that does the trick.")
-
- George Bush, for all his posturing and Rambo-speak, has
spent about as much time impeding a thorough investigation as he has vacationing
and napping - which is to say, quite a bit - and rightfully, this has led
many, many people to wonder just what the heck he is up to. This is a logical
question, not a 'delusional' one, and Ms. McKinney is to be commended for
having the courage to ask it.
-
- As for Ms. Parker, gutlessly spewing the GOP party line,
I would like to point out that not liking the politics someone who is asking
uncomfortable questions does not invalidate the argument. Combining a facetious
line of questioning with sledge hammer innuendo, Kathy Dearest is trying
to have it both ways. First she suggests that the question, 'Who profits?'
is irrelevant. Then she attempts to assign it relevancy, but only as it
pertains to Ms. McKinney.
-
- For argument's sake, let's allow that it's fair for Ms.
Parker to question Cynthia McKinney about that campaign contribution. Would
she then perhaps admit that George Bush has a bit of explaining to do,
too? Not likely. She has already consigned McKinney, the sorceress, and
her evil 'minions' to the bottom of the looney bin for even thinking such
a thing. (Please note that neither Parker, nor her GOP brethren, had any
problem asking the 'Who profits?' question when it came to Bill Clinton.
In pundit-world, hypocrisy trumps intellectual honesty every time.)
-
- Ms. Parker did get one thing right, though. Those of
us demanding honest answers to direct questions have been dwelling in the
basement for a long, long time - but it has not been a voluntary confinement.
We have been imprisoned there by a mendacious and duplicitous government;
a government that seems to believe that all it needs to do to keep us happy
is to throw down a fresh load of cow manure from time to time.
-
- Well, the cellar doors are rattling now, Ms. Parker,
and when there are enough of us who refuse to sit in the dark and contentedly
munch our cow chips like good boys and girls, there will be - how did Babs
put it - Hell to pay.
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