I was disappointed to note Josh Marshall's inclination to give such a generous benefit of doubt to the pugnacity and petulance demonstrated of late by Cynthia McKinney.

I mean, c’mon… she punched a Capitol police officer, in front of God and everybody—and now she wants to turn it into a Rodney King racial profiling incident, averring through her attorney that she was "just a victim of being in Congress while black."

Please.

Nancy Pelosi says, “I would not make a big deal of this.” I think this is a mistake. In fairness, were I part of Democratic congressional leadership under the circumstances, I would be disinclined to make a big deal out of it either. But, to minimize this incident is to take caucus loyalty to a counterproductive extreme. As much as it pains me to side with Denny Hastert’s office on anything, they have a valid point when they wonder, “How many officers would have to be punched before it becomes a big deal?”

Josh wonders whether the Capitol Hill police would issue an arrest warrant for a “more wired” member of the body. First, let me suggest that slapping around Federal cops on government property is a tenuous strategy by which to become “more wired,” so this hypothetical is highly unlikely ever to be tested.

But moreover, it’s hard to imagine even the most egregious characters of Congress reacting to this matter the way McKinney did. Anyone else in her position would either a) promptly and abjectly apologize or, b) vociferously call for the officer’s head (or, perhaps c) hunker down and negotiate a make-nice settlement behind closed doors.)

Ms. McKinney does none of the above. Instead, in a statement issued on Wednesday, she pointedly refers to the “white officer” as the “the offending officer,” but does not go so far as to find fault with his behavior—or hers, for that matter.

Yet, clearly, somebody was out of line here—either the cop or the congresswoman. Given the fact that the Capitol Police are willing to go to the mat on this one, and that they claim to have the whole thing on video, my money is with the cop.

I’m no fan of the panicky inanity that is post 9/11 law enforcement. I detest the insipid and humiliating game of Simon Says to which I am subjected every time I try to board an airplane. I see an awful lot of money being wasted on the ineffectual window dressing that too often passes for National Security. And I see altogether too many officials taking credit for making our nation more secure, when this hardly appears to be the case.

But I have difficulty finding fault with a policy of erring on the side of caution where it pertains to screening individuals entering Federal facilities in which members of the US Congress convene.

Members of Congress are issued badges—pins, actually—that Ms. McKinney reported routinely refuses to wear. Yet, in her statement, she asserts that, “it is the expectation of most Members of Congress that Capitol Hill Police officers know who they are"

“A proud bunch” indeed. If this is the expectation—that workaday civil servants are expected to memorize the names and faces of 525 people, many of whom are replaced on a bi-annual basis, while simultaneously surveilling the environment in which these people congregate for potential threats, and all the while navigating the minefield of hubris and privilege that informs this workplace—then the least the members could do is cooperate.

It’s a serious, largely thankless gig. You may recall that a couple of these guys were shot to death back in 1998. And if the Dems wish to persuade an unimpressed public that they are indeed up to the task of supplanting their Republican counterparts as the majority party, they would do well to at least pretend that they do not countenance boorishness (let alone criminality) in their membership.