Majette’s Middle march

Lost amid U.S. Sen. Zell Miller’s verbal spanking of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-4th) for her assertion that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were just a chance for President Bush to make a little dough for his friends in the defense industry, has been the Sen. Joe Lieberman-sounding response from McKinney’s opponent in the Aug. 20 primary.

Some Democratic leaders pummeled the Bush administration when they found out it had received some warning about the attacks and demanded to know who knew what when — a position McKinney took to extreme proportions weeks earlier. But Denise Majette, the former DeKalb County judge who will face McKinney in the Democratic primary, played it much more cautiously. Instead, she sought to bring the focus back to basic domestic issues that she believes McKinney has failed to address as a representative. In a news release statement, Majette heads for the middle ground that Senate majority leader Sen. Tom Daschle and House minority leader Dick Gephardt back-pedaled their way to over the weekend.

“The focus of any investigation should be to ensure that such attacks, especially on our soil, never happen again,” Majette states, sounding every bit like a woman looking for middle- and upper-class black votes, as well as the odd 4th District moderate Republican and not at all like a Democratic opportunist.

“Americans have long expressed fatigue with this kind of political gamesmanship,” Majette states about McKinney.

She also reinforces what undoubtedly will be her mantra leading up to the Aug. 20 primary: What has Cynthia done for you? Majette writes of 4th District voters: “They realize that getting on the 6 o’clock news doesn’t create jobs, it doesn’t bring new businesses into our district ... and it doesn’t eliminate trailers from our school grounds.”??