Posted on 06/19/2002 4:45:25 PM PDT by Keyes For President
Interrupting the endless 30-year Watergate retrospective and getting back to the war for a moment, I've noticed that liberals are having trouble making any good arguments against Bush, so I thought I'd help them out this week.
In the third presidential debate, George Bush responded to a question about racial profiling by spontaneously denouncing the profiling of Arabs at airports: "Arab Americans are racially profiled ... people are stopped, and we've got to do something about that."
Admittedly, this was before Sept. 11. If Arabs were being stopped at airports before Sept. 11 -- and that's a big if -- that was probably wrong. There had been only one terrorist attack here in America by Arabs -- the bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993. (This is excluding Sirhan Sirhan, the first Muslim to bring the classic religion-of-peace protest to American shores, when, in support of the Palestinians, he assassinated Robert Kennedy.)
But now it's after Sept. 11, we're at war, and Bush is still vexed about profiling Arabs.
Last week, Bush's Department of Transportation required airport security to search former Vice President Al Gore ( news - web sites). There's a lot not to like about Al Gore, but he's not a terrorist. Gore said he was glad he was searched. Why? So that a potential terrorist could be spared the trouble?
Searching Al Gore is a purely religious act. It is the purposeless, fetishistic performance of rituals in accordance with the civic religion of liberalism.
It's not just Bush's Department of Transportation swearing fealty to the left's civic religion. A few weeks ago, FBI ( news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee ( news - web sites) that "immediately after Sept. 11" when the FBI was trying to stop "a second wave of terrorists out there," FBI policy was this: "We were not looking for individuals of any particular religion or from any particular country."
Evidently, the only people the Bush administration thinks it appropriate to search are angry men with smoke pouring out of their trousers.
Fortunately, Fitzpatrick and O'Malley out on the street appear to have had a different idea about whom to roust after Sept. 11. If not, then valiant and hardworking FBI agents are to be commended for their rapid surveillance of 280 million Americans -- cheerleaders, dentists, nursing home residents, Amish, performance artists, professional baseball players and so on -- before settling on about a thousand Muslim men to detain.
If it weren't a laughable lie, Mueller should be fired for demanding that FBI agents chastely ignore religion and nationality when investigating terrorism.
But instead of calling for Mueller's head, Democrats on the committee demanded that Mueller issue yet more ritualistic professions of faith in liberalism's civic religion. Only a religious cult would require people to appear before committees and say things that are demonstrably false.
Mueller dutifully complied, repeatedly assuring the assembled clergy that "The bureau is against -- has been and will be against -- any form of profiling." He said the new guidelines do not address "members of a particular group and not members of a particular political persuasion or anything along those lines."
Galileo put up more of a fight.
In his inimitable Stalinist way, Sen. Russell Feingold demanded that no one at the FBI even consider whether racial profiling might have prevented 9/11. Liberals treat racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex. It is not a topic that may be discussed, except to recoil in horror at the practice.
Feingold said he was "very troubled" at seeing government officials "quoted in the press saying that they believe concerns of being accused of racial profiling led the FBI to not act on the Phoenix memo."
The Phoenix memo was the one noting that a lot of Middle Eastern men were enrolled in American flight schools. Inasmuch as all of the leaders of the terrorist attack were Arabs in American flight schools, it's not crazy to think that an aggressive investigation of Arabs in American flight schools might have thwarted the attack.
When Mueller came back with some flaccid response, saying he had heard an "indication" of "a possible concern" about racial profiling, Feingold imperiously informed the director: "I was hoping for a different answer." Not the truth -- just a different answer. The only thing he left out was "Comrade."
Muslim terrorists are trying to nuke Manhattan, and the Senate is conducting Soviet show trials on whether anyone at the FBI is wistfully daydreaming about racial profiling.
Relentlessly pursuing incipient thought crimes at the FBI, Feingold pronounced it "a distortion" to suggest that acting on the Phoenix memo would have constituted racial profiling. The memo, he said, "contained specific information about specific individuals."
The specific information was this: A lot of Middle Eastern men were attending American flight schools. Excising the portion of that statement that liberals refuse to consider -- Middle Eastern men -- the only "specific information" is: "People were attending flight schools."
These are the lunatics the Bush administration is hoping to propitiate by refusing to engage in racial profiling. If an attack comes, I assure you: No one will be praising Bush for abiding by the rules of the cult and carefully searching Al Gore.
The "McVeigh Gang" is 50% dead, and 50% in jail for life.
Not quite the same as a worldwide Islamic Jihad movement was it?
Cretin.
Moron.
Idiot.
Of course. The government is not going to provide any blueprints for its security strategy. That would be idiotic. Coulter knows that. But she's writing a column and she knows that she can get a lot of mileage by suggesting that the President's policy is being compromised by political correctness. It's her business to write inflammatory columns so that readers can vent their anger. And, as you can see, they are. No harm, no foul.
IOW, this is all just the usual baloney.
He is not the anti-Christ either.
In addition, if we announce that we are profiling, al Qaeda will immediately make sure that all of their people who board planes are disguised as grannies, middle class suburban kids, Hispanics, etc.
Profiling is a component, but I am afraid all the whiners are going to have to realize that random searches are going to continue.
What if the granny ahead of you in line is carrying a "present" from her granddaughter's boyfriend?
What if the little girl in front of you was handed a toy by the shopkeeper in the airport gift shop?
What if the fat old black guy ahead of you is really a radical Black Muslim, converted in prison?
What if the Chinese couple you are following are really Indonesian Muslims with a surprise for all on board?
Should we pay attention to Arabs boarding planes? Sure! But that alone will not make us safe. So I am afraid that Anne and all the whiners I have seen on this thread are just going to have to deal with it. We are at war.
I want to read people who use their brains rather than just spouting a Party line - EVEN if it's my Party. There's a difference between reasoned critique and bashing. This is a critical article, it is not bashing.
If Ann wanted to bash she'd peel the paint off the walls in two paragraphs. This ain't bashing.
And so they should. Reluctance to "profile" is likely to get someone killed. Oops! It already HAS!
In fact, this whole term "profile" originated in the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton School of Victimhood. It worked so well for black criminals, the towlies decided to expand the franchise.
You can't.
And that's not just "symantics".
You have consistently proven to be that yourself, minus the words 'Intelligent', 'Keyes', and 'kisser'.
Well said.
very well said
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