Mickey Kaus is an early candidate for the John Maclane “Welcome to the Party Pal!” Award for this post about a subject I consider pretty important
Time for Re-Norming? Did you know that
Department of Transportation lawyers have extracted millions in settlements from four major [air] carriers for alleged discrimination after 9/11 ….
I didn’t. … The DOT accused the airlines of “discriminatory conduct” (i.e. profiling) when, out of the millions who fly, they didn’t allow a handful of people–about half of them Middle Eastern–to board planes. American Airlines had to pay $1.5 million. That’ll make air travel safer! … You don’t have to agree with Heather Mac Donald’s overall argument that the enemy is not terrorism but “Islamist terrorism” to think this is an idiotic policy. One day the main terrorist threat to the U.S. will come from some non-Islamist group–but if the enemy were South Moluccan terrorism you’d want to be extra careful with South Moluccans (and people who looked like South Moluccans), no? … Backfill: Ann Coulter wrote a column about the DOT litigation in April. Coulter and Mac Donald both support racial profiling–at least using race as a factor. The scariest thing about the DOT suits is that they seem designed to encourage the airlines to go out of their way to avoid searching and questioning Muslim men (‘leave him alone, he might sue’)–a perverse and seemingly semi-suicidal reverse-discrimination practice. … 2:25 A.M.
Where the heck has he been? This was one of the big topic du jour of the 9/11 Commission Hearings on perhaps the most covered day of those hearings – Condoleeza Rice Day.
Michelle Malkin has been all over this story as has the others Kaus mentioned. Michael Smerconish has a whole book on the subject of how pitiful our airline security is (and the matter of fines and “profiling” figures pretty importantly in it) and has been making the circuit of the pundit shows.
Mr. Kaus, you need to get way up on top of this story. It’s nearly a year old now and things aren’t getting any better!
(Update: Hello, Michelle Malkin readers! Be sure to check out her links since she’s been all over this story like the New York Times on a “wild internet rumor” that Halliburton is really run by Tomax and Xamot)
