Inside the Beltway. . . and Out

The Republican Party is in disarray. DeLay is resigning under a corruption cloud and Repubs are split over the immigration issue, the budget and the war in Iraq.

But just when the Republicans in Congress are self-destructing, along comes Rep. Cynthia McKinney to save them.

Her confrontational tactics and her frequent charges that virtually everything inconvenient that happens in her life is because of racism -- and the most recent incident when she tried to get past House office building security and hit a police officer with her cell phone when he stopped her -- all have given Republicans something to talk about besides their own problems.

Republicans are using Rep. McKinney's attempt to bypass security as an example of how much they care about security and how little Democrats care. It's having an affect.

The news around the Hill is not about the Republicans' problems and factional debates, but about Rep. McKinney's actions and her own racism.

As Dana Milbank points out in today's Washington Post, the Democrats' biggest problem is getting her to shut up.

Rep. McKinney was on three TV shows yesterday, and true to form got into a fight with CNN's Soledad O'Brien.

Rep. McKinney has problems -- with authority, with white people, with almost everything.

Republicans are having a field day -- trotting out stories of all of Rep. McKinney's past actions, putting her forward as the face of the Democratic Party.

As I said in a previous post, Rep. McKinney needs to face the fact that not every single bad or inconvenient thing that happens to her -- like having to show identification or her Congressional pin to avoid the metal detector in the House of Representatives' office buildings -- is harassment by white people.

Unfortunately for Democrats, she has gone from just an occassional embarassment, to a campaign issue for the November elections. She needs to tone it down.