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Tue. Jun 06, 2006

Delivered, Via Postcard

I intend to write something about “The State of My Politics” before long, but for now let’s just say that if you asked who disgusted me more, Michael Jackson or your average politician, I’d have to think about it long and hard before I could speak. I’ve seen precious little that could qualify as “Good News” this year, and that certainly includes the political world.

My complete disgust with this administration and Congress, and corresponding inability to vote for a Republican for dogcatcher this year, had put me in an rather unpalatable position, even though my current Congressperson is a Democrat. You see, her name is Cynthia McKinney. And I was faced with the choice of voting to increase the majority control of the Republican Congress I loathe, or vote for Cynthia McKinney. And “loathe” fits her pretty well, too.

But then … I was delivered. Via postcard, and a simple change of one digit. Where my voting precinct card had once said “CONG 004” ... McKinney’s district … it now says “CONG 005.” And that one little digit makes so much difference. So much that I feel … delivered.

Here’s Two Tales of Representative Arrest. See which one you’d prefer as your elected representative. Tale One: “Federal prosecutors investigating the confrontation between Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and a Capitol police officer have been talking privately with McKinney’s office in hopes of resolving the case without the spectacle of an indictment and trial, officials familiar with the talks say.”

Tale Two: “Rep. John Lewis strode down the sidewalk wearing a gray pinstriped suit and blue dress shirt open at the neck. ‘They don’t like for you to wear a tie,’ he said. By ‘they’ he meant the police who were waiting to arrest him. No one in Congress today is more familiar with arrest etiquette than Lewis, the civil rights leader who has been jailed more than 40 times in his 66 years, most recently Tuesday for protesting in front of the Sudanese Embassy over the widespread violence and starvation in Darfur.”

I’ll be quite happy to vote for the man his peers describe as the “conscience of Congress.” Because to read the news these days, you’d think he’s damn near all that’s left of it.