Cynthia McKinney - Green Party Candidate or GOP Ally?

Last night Senator Hillary Clinton, proudly sporting one of her patented pantsuits, stood tall before the spotlight of the national media on the stage of the Democratic National Convention and urged her supporters to cast aside the last curtains dividing the Democratic Party and throw the full force of their support behind Senator Barack Obama.

She addressed the country and obviously the convention, but she was clearly speaking to the entrenched hardcore Hillary supporters who are still seething over the results of one of the hardest-fought Democratic primary seasons in modern US history. The media has captured, photographed and editorialized every single move of the emerging battle between Obama and McCain - but I haven't seen much mainstream media coverage of another thorn in Obama's side; 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney (Pictured above left).

McKinney is the controversial former US Representative from Georgia's 11th and later 4th District who made her voice heard on Capitol Hill railing against Bush's complacency in 911, calling for sealed records in the Tupak Shakur case to be released to the public and more famously, getting into a physical alteration with Capitol Hill security guards when they refused to allow her to enter the building because she was not wearing the House of Representatives pin all members are required to wear to gain entry past security. She punched the Capitol Hill police officer who tried to stop her and later apologized on the floor of the House for her behavior.

McKinney was inspired to enter politics by her father Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta's first black policeman who later served in the Georgia state legislature. Days before his daughter's primary defeat in 2002 he made headlines (and political enemies for him and his daughter) in front of a local TV news camera by opining:
"That ain't nothin'. Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S."

She herself has faced multiple accusations of anti-Semitism, blocking support for Israel in Congress and courting the support of people known to be affiliated with organizations that support Hamas and other radical Islamic groups.

She was endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations which sent an e-mail to their membership urging them to support her 2002 Congressional campaign; the e-mail read, in part:
"...support Cynthia McKinney...Pro-Muslim candidate. Supporter of Palestinian State for over 7 years. Against secret evidence. Against Aid to Israel."

In 1988 CAIR co-founderOmar Ahmad told a California audience: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

If McKinney accepts money from them, why wouldn't she accept money from someone like Roger Stone, the Republican insider who managed and channeled money to support Al Sharpton's failed bid for the presidency in the 2004 election in order to strip votes from John Kerry?

These are critical times we live in. Not since the depression-era election of 1933 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the first of 4 terms in office have registered American voters stood on the cusp of a more significant opportunity to affect change in the very fabric of this society.

Hillary Clinton spoke directly to her most hardcore constituency when she asked them why they were in the race, for Hillary? Or for the working and middle class people of this nation in need of health care and struggling to make ends meet as they live check to check with nothing left over to save.

It's a question this alignment of "progressives" and Clinton supporters need to consider. Are they seriously going to cast a vote for an anti-Semitic, liberal extremist candidate with absolutely no chance of winning the 2008 election, or worse; vote for John McCain just to SHOW Barack Obama how bitter they are?

Will they honestly risk four more years of an unimaginative, elitist Bush-lackey like John McCain occupying the White House, because they are still irked over the primaries that ended months ago?

If their logic is related to policy stances with Obama's/Democrat's platform then they need to step back and acknowledge that no candidate in this race is perfect.

Progressives are only kidding themselves - and the only ones laughing will be the Republicans who've driven this nation into the ground in the past 8 years as the "progressives" of the Green Party strip away votes from the only presidential candidate committed to honest change for ALL Americans.