There is ultimately something quite sad and fairly predictable about Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat. I’m not talking about her penchant for altercations with security guards or her in-your-face confrontational style or even the strange and outrageous conspiracy theories she espouses. There is nothing new about any of these particular qualities in politics or elsewhere. The in-your-face personality is omnipresent these days, from Capitol Hill to professional sports to the entertainment industry. And conspiracy theorists have never had a hard time finding an audience.

No, the sadness I feel has to do with the issue of race in the United States in 2006. More to the point, it’s how people like Ms. McKinney use race, which is still an important social problem, to further their own agenda. It’s especially upsetting since Ms. McKinney has one of the greatest platforms in the history of civilization to voice her views – the Congress of the United States. In that position, she could elevate this discussion. She could move us all forward and help solve some of the troubling issues that still affect our country. Instead, Ms. McKinney has repeatedly used race as an excuse for her own bad behavior.

One-hundred and forty-three years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 42 years after the Civil Rights Act, I believe race relations have evolved and changed for the better. There are still troglodytes out there who are incapable of ever seeing people other than themselves as equals. I’ve sadly heard ugly, racist comments from various quarters, but they have been greatly reduced from the days of my childhood (I’ve always been struck that the uglier the comments, the less intelligent the speaker is). But in the vast majority of conversations I pick up today, race just isn’t part of the lexicon the way it was, say, 40 years ago.

I’ve come to this non-scientific conclusion based on what I hear in the workplace, on television, and in friendships. I see advancement in every possible venue of American popular culture. When I was a kid, television was all white, many professions were all white, even professional sports were, for the most part, pretty much white. That’s just not the case any more. Remember Trent Lott? He was the Senate majority leader who stupidly praised Strom Thurmond’s 1948 run for president on a segregationist platform. Mr. Lott, if you haven’t noticed, is no longer the majority leader. This is change. Unfortunately, I’ve seen no such forward movement in Cynthia McKinney.

By now, we all know the details of her latest escapade, which mushroomed into a Washington-size scandal over what should have been a non-issue – her refusal to stop at a security desk in the Capitol. Actually, it did go one step further when she struck a security guard who tried to learn her identity. Since September 11, there are very strict security procedures in place at the entrances to that particular building. Even school children understand the need for vigilance in our famous domed Capitol, which more than any other historic structure in America, represents our nation. On September 11, the Capitol was a target for destruction. Within the last two weeks, the entire building was evacuated because of a simple power outage. People are on edge. In 1998, two Capitol Police officers were shot and killed manning a security post just like the one Ms. McKinney circumvented. They were killed protecting not just the edifice as a symbol, but the people who work inside, including Ms. McKinney.

Perhaps Ms. McKinney thought she was above the rules of ordinary mortals. It’s a common virus that infects many politicians. I am still annoyed remembering the time a senator from New York skipped the line in front of me to get on the Washington Shuttle and then yelled at me for questioning his right to do that. So Ms. McKinney is hardly the only elected official with a stronger sense of entitlement than most of us. There may have even been a good reason for her refusal to stop – perhaps she was late for a really, really important meeting. The problem is … this sort of thing seems to keep happening to Ms. McKinney. Nothing about it is new. It’s a repeat of past performances.

In her first term in Congress back in 1993, Ms. McKinney accused an elevator operator in the Capitol of questioning her right to ride a lift reserved only for Representatives. She made a stink about it. A few years later, she raised the same sort of racial issue when she accused President Clinton (never known as a race baiter) of poor treatment at a White House event. When this happens once, there may be something to it. When it happens repeatedly, one has to look at the individual voicing the complaints and wonder what’s behind it.

A public relations expert could have suggested various ways for Ms. McKinney to handle this latest episode (and would have charged big money to do so). Probably the smartest move would have been to immediately apologize and say that in the future she will wear her congressional identification pin. Had she done that, my guess is, none of us would have heard about the incident and I would have had to look for some other topic about which to write.

Instead, Ms. McKinney took another, more familiar tack in a way that trivializes the real issues here. Without missing a beat, she immediately pulled the race card. She called a press conference and looked for celebrities in the African-American community to stand by her. She was able to come up with actors Harry Bellefonte and Danny Glover who did join her, but also seemed to distance themselves slightly by telling reporters they were still not fully aware of all the details in the incident. Ms. McKinney also brought out a large contingent of black school children who held signs that read “Is Cynthia a target?” So much for a spontaneous event. She later upped the ante in the press by making a further claim that these very children who appeared with her had been “disrespected” by the Capitol Police, but she never offered any details of this alleged incident. At this press conference, Ms. McKinney, never denying the charge against her, instead parried it with her own charge of racial profiling. She said it was the police who were at fault for not recognizing her.

Several days later, when it looked like the Capitol Police were serious about bringing up charges against her for striking the officer, Ms. McKinney had no other choice but to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and offer the apology she should have given in the first place.

This part of the story isn’t new either. The congresswoman who likes to see herself as the voice of controversial causes has overstepped herself before. Shortly after 9/11, she implied on Pacifica Radio that the White House and others may have had prior knowledge of the impending attacks and actually profited from them. Most reasonable people, no matter where they stand on the political spectrum, knew who did what on 9/11 and why they did what they did on that horrible day. Ms. McKinney was forced to retract that statement, but she did so with a kind of non-retraction:

“I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal this to be the case.”

There have been several complete investigations since then including the September 11 Commission’s report, which hasn’t found a shred of evidence to support such drivel.

In the end, what must her constituents think of their spokesperson in Congress? Can they possibly agree with her when she continually finds racial discrimination in places where it does not exist and when she takes a brilliant opportunity actually to do some good for her voters and her country and wastes it with frivolity and paranoia? Instead of raising the bar and elevating us, Cynthia McKinney sets us all backward.

Mr. Kozak is a contributor to The New York Sun.