In 2002, Rep. Cynthia McKinney looked untouchable; the Georgia Democrat had held her seat in Congress for a decade and her majority-minority district had shown no desire to kick the liberal, female, African-American out of office. While she was long known for being outspoken (McKinney accused Al Gore of having a “low Negro tolerance level” in 1996, and then in 1998 said that she was “absolutely sick and tired of having to have my appearance at the White House validated by white people”), McKinney’s constituents did not seem to mind; an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution from 2002 was headlined “What will she say next? Rep. Cynthia McKinney makes outrageous statements, wins by big margins.”
Until 9/11, that is. While the majority of Americans, including the leadership of her own party, rallied around the president for at least a short time, McKinney chose to attack him. Suggesting complicity in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, McKinney said on a California radio station that “We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11 . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? What do they have to hide?” McKinney then got to what, in her mind, was the heart of the matter, stating that “corporations close to the administration have directly benefited from the increased defense spending arising from the aftermath of September 11th.”
