October 20, 2001
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:If I don't have any principles, can I have $10 million?
Photodude destroys the money-grubbing and hypocritical representative McKinney from Georgia. In case you don't remember, she's the one going after the $10 milllion Giuliani turned down.
For Sale: One Congressperson - I let this news item slide when it first came up, but Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia is persistent in her campaign to kiss up in the name of $10 million. In case you haven't heard, a recap: "It was revealed then that she had written a letter to Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to apologize for New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani rejecting bin Talal's donation because the prince had questioned U.S. policy in the Middle East. McKinney also wrote bin Talal that she knew many charities that help the poor and people of color in America and that her office would be happy to steer him to some of those charities." Despite the outrage since then, yesterday she announced she would be meeting with the Prince's representatives in her chase for the dough. While it might in some way sound "charitable" to seek money for the "the poor and people of color", let's take a close look at her letter to the Prince, if we can bear it. Careful, it's pretty deep, so watch what you step in...."I was disappointed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani chose to decline your generous offer and instead criticize you for your observations of events in the Middle East. Whether he agreed with you or not I think he should have recognized your right to speak and make observations about a part of the world which you know so well."
Excuse me, in what way did Guliani deny the Prince the right to speak? I saw the Prince on three different TV interviews in which he pushed his linkage of sorrow for 9-11 and criticism of US policy. His message got through to me loud and clear long before Guliani literally bid him adieu on his way out of the country. He'd had his say elsewhere. In front of Guliani, he didn't have the balls to speak his mind, he tacked a "press release" onto the printed copy of his actual speech, passed out to the press after he'd left.
"Your Royal Highness, [as she refers to him four times, despite the fact he is one of 7,000 Saudi princes] many of us here in the United States have long been concerned about reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that reveal a pattern of excessive, and often indiscriminate, use of lethal force by Israeli security forces in situations where Palestinian demonstrators were unarmed and posed no threat of death or serious injury to the security forces or to others."
Ms. McKinney is apparently a very selective reader. Amnesty International also has extensive reports about the abuses perpetrated by the Prince's family, reports of repression, beatings, amputations, and killings, simply for the crime of ethnicity, religion, or gender.
Ms. McKinney would be a target on each count. Forced to cover herself completely, leave her home only with a male escort, and otherwise suffer the second class status of all non-royal women in Saudi Arabia. Persecuted because of her color, her place of birth, and her religion. She'd be lucky to survive a month under the government of the kind generous Prince's family.
I found photodude courtesy of Matt Welch's searches (see post below). Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at October 20, 2001 02:24 PM | Technorati inbound links