[Fatigued Mother]

So much for being politically correct!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And still Political Correctness controls our lives.

[xjcsa]

Wow it would suck to be him. I'm a ticket agent at a small airport, too. I've also checked in lots of Arab travelers, but I've never had a feeling like he describes. The problem is, there wasn't much he could have done. Just tell the guy he can't fly? He would have just been overridden by a supervisor and disciplined.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

...

[Imaverygooddriver]

And on this date in history....

Feb 26 1993

A bomb explodes on level B2 of the World Trade Center, creating a five story crater and leaving six dead and over 1,042 injured.

And what did the Klintoons do about it?

[withteeth]

I remember being shocked when I first saw Atta's picture. Even if I hadn't known what he'd done, it would have given me a chill. Steely-eyed. He had a look of cold-hearted anger and idiotic resolve.

As for his 'goofy' partner, do we know whether or not some of the hijackers were ignorant about their mission?

[F16Fighter]

Thank you 'Anti-Racial Profiling' and 'Hate Crimes' legislation.

[wideminded]

Interesting story, but is that what he told the 9/11 commission? Maybe this is just revisionism on the part of Touhey. He has read Smerconish's book and finds this a useful way to asuage his sense of guilt.

[Publius6961]

Touhey now kicks himself for not acting, but Smerconish says if he had, the federal government probably would have punished him, noting three major airlines have been fined for alleged racial profiling.

I have got to stop reading threads like this one. They always remind me of three things:

There is no incompetence more common, more serious and more intractable than a bureaucrat with authority and no common sense (the Dept of Transportation).

No good deed goes unpunished.

And the only thing necessary for an unjust incompetent government to exist is an endless supply of unjust incompetent bureaucrats.

[The Great RJ]

We would rather harass an 84 year old Congressional Medal of Honor winner (the late Marine air ace, Joe Foss who was nearly strip searched and made to remove his cowboy boots to board a plane in Phoenix post 9-11) than target people we know to be likely terrorists, Arab males.

I'm all for doing a dragnet of all aliens from Arab countries, immediately deporting those who are here illegally, detaining the suspicious in Guantanamo and photographing and fingerprinting the rest and making them report their movements to local law enforcement under penalty of immediate deportation for failure to do so.

Politically incorrect you bet, but if it would prevent another 9-11 well worth it.