Lewis "counsels" McKinney (UPDATED)

Or rather, he tries to, says The Hill this morning. I've actually been waiting to hear what Rep. Lewis had to say about McKinney, for a number of reasons:

1) He's the senior member of the GA delegation,
2) The GA delegation has been rather tight-lipped about the whole McKinney freakout, and
3) His district (the 5th) is very similar demographically, politically, etc. to her's (the 4th).

And what, pray tell did he say to her? To shut up, basically:

I told her she needs to lower the temperature and stop holding the press conferences. I don't think it had any impact because she is still going on all the TV shows.

That's a pretty measured response, given the fact that she's making not only the Democratic party look bad (or at least giving the GOP more ammunition), but also making the Georgia delegation, and the voters who elected her, also look like fools with her disgraceful actions. The article goes on to say that

Lewis said other members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) had also told McKinney to back off, adding that she had little support in the group. It held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the issue, a House source said.

"Discuss," as in, "How do we get her to SHUT THE HELL UP." Not all the Democrats in Congress are crazy (just misguided), and more than a few would not only like to be reelected, but to see a member of their party in the White House in a couple of years. To them, this should be and could be a non-story, if McKinney hadn't started calling press conferences to allege racism on the part of the Capitol Police. Now she, and they by proxy, are getting all kinds of bad press, which they can ill afford. Not to mention that the GOP can be seen in the background, trying to quietly sweep Tom Delay, et al. under the rug, laughing at McKinney all the while.

McKinney is rapidly becoming the laughingstock of Congress, which is no small feat, and she doesn't seem to realize it, wrapped up as she is in her world of personal conspiracy and rascism. In fact, I know of at least one conservative blogger in her district who's planning on voting for the Democratic Party challenger to her seat this July, just to keep her from going back to D.C.

Oh, and Cynthia, next time you want to fly singers to Atlanta, we'd appreciate it if you didn't do it with taxpayer-funded office supply money. And it's not your job to find out who killed Tupac (what, no love for Biggie?). In fact, she needs to read John at Right Wing News' "Cynthia McKinney's Road to Recovery." They're pretty simple steps, but I think it will soon be too late for her to turn back, since even some of her friends are beginning to abandon her.

*UPDATE: Malkin has links to the video of McKinney's "apology," which isn't an apology for hitting a cop, but an apology that the situation "escalated:"

I come before this body to personally express again my sincere regret about the encounter with the capitol hill police. . .There should not have been any physical contact in this incident. . . I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize. [emphasis mine]

Um, yeah. Pay attention to the part I bolded. . . not exactly a mea culpa, is it? Also, scroll down a bit on Malkin's page and read about McKinney's privately-hired bodyguard threatening a reporter. A reporter from ATLANTA. Classy. Here's the video of that little incident, if you'd like to watch.