Cynthia McKinney May Have "Apologized," but She Didn't Mean It
Reported by Melanie - April 6, 2006
Fox has spent the past 48 hours treating Tom DeLay like a saint who's riding off into the sunset to do more good for the Republican party, and Cynthia McKinney like a hard-core felon. Fox continued the McKinney-bashing today (April 6, 2006), not because she allegedly struck a Capitol Hill policeman, or because she claimed racism was involved when she was stopped by that policeman to begin with, but because Fox decided the apology she issued today wasn't good enough. Of course, nothing McKinney could have said would have met with Fox's approval because this isn't really about McKinney, or what she did or said, it's about bashing Democrats as a whole. Fox never, ever, misses an opportunity to do that, and as a matter of fact, it creates opportunities to do so.
Roughly halfway through Your World, after a FOX NEWS ALERT, Fox's "business news" anchor, Neil Cavuto introduced Barry Minkow of the "Fraud Discovery Institute." Minkow is Cavuto's resident ex-con. He spent seven years in prison because of an undisclosed "white collar crime," and he makes frequent appearances when someone in the news faces time in prison. He was on a lot during Martha Stewart's trial, for example.
After airing a 7-second clip of McKinney apologizing, saying she was sorry for "this misunderstanding happening at all" and she regretted "its escalation," Cavuto set up the interview like this:
But that apology was to the House, not to the cop she reportedly hit. So, is this sincere or is she just trying to save her own behind?
Meanwhile, Fox took down the graphic over Cavuto's shoulder that said, "Is she Sorry?" and put up a chyron at the bottom of the screen that said, "McKinney Apology: Sincere or Saving her Own Behind?"
Cavuto asked Minkow, "What do you make of this whole thing?" Minkow said this is a "perfect case" of "justifying our own actions, making excuses for our own actions or defending our actions." He said, "All McKinney" had to do was say "I blew it. I was angry. I'm sorry, both to the police officers and for escalating this to a racial thing." That "would have been the higher road here."
A few minutes later Minkow said we've all been angry, "so just say that...instead it's racial, it's this, and then the apology doesn't include I'm sorry for escalating it to a racial thing."
You get the idea - three minutes of this.
Comment: Here is McKinney's very brief statement. I'd be willing to bet Fox's audience would have thought it was a perfectly fine apology, if, that is, Fox had let them see it. It couldn't have taken McKinney longer than 90 seconds to read it. But no! Again, never missing an opportunity to bash Democrats, Fox showed its audience only enough to set the stage for a segment that painted McKinney as disingenuous and self-serving; traits that are - according to Fox - inherent in all Democrats.
