Voters who think Kucinich is too right-wing

...now have Cynthia McKinney, running for the Green Party Presidential nomination. Marc Cooper is decidedly unimpressed:

Here's some news you might use about Barack Obama. Did you know he was, in reality, a government plant, a sort of Manchurian Candidate activated by Big Brother to confuse black people?

That’s the political gospel according to the recently self-proclaimed Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney as she launched her national campaign this week from Houston. When asked by someone in the small audience at Texas Southern University about Obama, McKinney responded: “Look at the Colin Powells, the Condoleezza Rices, the Ward Connerlys... We have to be careful with the black people who are put before us by the media.” She then segued right into a monologue about the 1960s FBI COINTELPRO program, noting that it had included a plan to replace Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a more moderate voice. Which, we can only conclude, pretty much sums up Obama’s sinister role in the scheme of things — or, at least, in the jumble that occupies the space between McKinney’s ears: He’s a government stooge.

[...]

So now the publicity-hungry McKinney is back, all dressed up as a presidential candidate, albeit of a third party, and being trundled around by the likes of Cindy Sheehan and other activists who have clearly gone ’round the bend. Anyone with even vaguely progressive inclinations ought to toss tomatoes at a charlatan like McKinney rather than applaud her. She’s an embarrassment and a fraud.

I’d say it’s a pity that the Greens are adopting her if it were not so predictable they would. There are some places in the world, like Germany, where the Green Party actually has some reality and some real influence (the Greens were part of the governing coalition there for much of the last decade). And at a time when consciousness about climate change and the environment in general is rapidly growing, the moment seems ripe for a movement or a party based on sustainable alternatives. But not the U.S. Greens. [via 9/11 Conspiracy Smasher]

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party's preferred candidate is running for the Republican nomination. There's talk of Michael Bloomberg or even Lou Dobbs (shudder) running as independent candidates, but by and large, this isn't a good time for American third parties. (But don't blame me - I voted for Kodos.)

Damian P.

Posted by damian at December 21, 2007 06:37 PM