Carter, McKinney & her bodyguard: Georgia strikes out with Three bad Swings.

James Taranto under the title "Smug Alert" scores the supercilious, condescending, blatherful and ultra-smug Ex-Peanut Farmer and Winner of the Nobel Prize along with Arafat Gee-mah "Jimmy" Carter for being a prudish, prissy prig and self-righteous to boot! Here's his limp-wristed commentary to an imaginary question:

Carter fittingly used a parable to illustrate how he'd like to see the political/religious debate unfold.

"I was teaching a Sunday school class two weeks ago," he recalls. "A girl, she was about 16 years old from Panama City [Fla.], asked me about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

"I asked her, 'Are you for peace, or do you want more war?' Then I asked her, 'Do you favor government helping the rich, or should it seek to help the poorest members of society? Do you want to preserve the environment, or do you want to destroy it? Do you believe this nation should engage in torture, or should we condemn it? Do you think each child today should start life responsible for $28,000 in [federal government] debt, or do you think we should be fiscally responsible?'

"I told her that if she answered all of those questions, that she believed in peace, aiding the poor and weak, saving the environment, opposing torture . . . then I told her, 'You should be a Democrat.' "

It must be the water, or an epidemic of brain death, but Georgia also got a hat tip from Taranto in the form of describing its civics-lesson Atlanta Congressperson through the eyes of a liberal press outlet:

Facing the possibility of criminal charges, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, she "apologized for her role" in the incident. But in fact if the AJC's quotes are accurate, she did no such thing:

"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident," McKinney, surrounded by a handful of lawmakers, said.

"I am sorry this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize," McKinney said, drawing applause from the partially-filled chamber.

"There should not have been any physical contact . . . this misunderstanding happened . . . I regret its escalation." It does not appear that she expressed any remorse whatever for her actions. What's more, the paper suggests that an employee of hers then proceeded to impersonate a policeman:

Even as McKinney appeared to be trying to put the issue to rest, a bodyguard she hired--reportedly a former Georgia state trooper--was raising another furor when he threatened a television reporter trying to interview McKinney outside the Capitol just minutes before she appeared on the House floor. When the reporter from Cox Broadcasting tried to ask McKinney about the grand jury, the bodyguard told him, "I'm going to put your ass in jail. I'm a police officer," a videotape of the incident shows. Asked if he worked for Capitol police, the man said, "I work for Miss McKinney."

The Hill reports that before the "apology," members of the Congressional Black Caucus were distancing themselves from McKinney:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil-rights pioneer and the senior member of the Georgia Democratic congressional delegation, told Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) to stop making political hay out of her scuffle a week ago with a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

"I told her she needs to lower the temperature and stop holding the press conferences," Lewis said, recounting his conversation with McKinney on the House floor yesterday. "I don't think it had any impact because she is still going on all the TV shows."

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.