Time to find out how the war was sold
I have met Cynthia McKinney and have found her gracious, charming, and thoughtful. Her latest implanting of her foot in her mouth (and her cell phone into a ploice officer) is reminiscent of some of her over-the-top pronouncements and actions from before her defeat by Denise Majette, however. We all had hoped the sobering effects of that defeat would last longer than it did. Leonard Pitts comes closest to voicing my take on her DC police caper.
Leonard Pitts on the Cynthia McKinney Debacle
One of my favorites of the founding fathers has always been Patrick Henry. He is sort of the Patron Saint of those of us who sometimes find ourselves alone on a limb -- the Dissenters. He's the guy who cried "Give me liberty or give me death!" as the colonies began to rebel. He is also the ornery dissenter who took on Washington, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, et al, and opposed ratification of the Constitution. I'm glad he lost that battle but you have to admire his spunk. And once he lost he was a thorn in the side of the other founders, demanding a Bill of Rights to protect citizens from potentially tyranical government. Sorry, Bush-folk, I believe Patrick would be right there with me cying his famous cry when a tyrant claims he can invade the private lives of Americans without warrant and in direct contravention of specific law. If he wouldn't trust the government under George Washington with his freedoms, he certainly wouldn't trust the government under today's George. One essayist says:
Citizens, he [Patrick Henry] believed, are not supposed to have faith in their governors; they are supposed to have faith in themselves. We can best honor Patrick Henry's political legacy of democratic participation and individual dissent by recognizing the legitimacy, indeed, the necessity of political conflict in a free society. -Henry Mayer
An Essay on Patrick Henry.
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