Author: Bryant

I just clued into the other thing that bugs me about the Annie Jacobsen story. Michelle Malkin, among others, writes smugly that this event highlights the stupidity of a policy against secondary questioning of more than two Arabs per flight. See also Ann Coulter’s racist whine, which Annie Jacobsen cited in her original article.

But Annie Jacobsen also noted that the 14 Syrians on her flight were… pulled aside and questioned in LA. This was confirmed by government officials. So, ah, doesn’t that kind of undercut the concept that the airlines have a policy against questioning groups of Arabs?

A lot of people aren’t thinking that one through. Or, more to the point, they’re assuming that a policy restricting “secondary questioning” means that airlines can never under any circumstances pull aside more than two Arabs per flight.

It’s also worth noting that the original source for the information about this policy, John Lehman, never said that he knew the policy was in effect. He said he thought it was still in effect; which, of course, was reported without the element of uncertainty inherent in “I think.” Paying attention is hard! And why should Mr. Lehman worry about getting the details right in something so important as the 9/11 hearings, anyhow? They seem like a fine forum to promulgate unverified beliefs about our security.

I am eternally grateful for the presence of sane people on this planet.

A summary: Annie Jacobsen got worried because she was on a flight with a number of Middle Eastern men acting in a manner which she found suspicious. Cue blogosphere firestorm. Some people pointed out that no responsible flight attendant would act as described. But, you know, evil Muslims are a better story.

And the aforelinked sane person said “You know… that’s what devout Muslims do on long flights. They pray, because they need to pray five times per day.”

The governor of Mosul, Mashaan al-Juburi, was just assassinated. This follows massive car bombings in Mosul a couple of weeks ago.

Mosul is a key city because it’s a key point of friction between the Kurds and the Sunnis. Juburi’s appointment was not without controversy and violence, to say the least; his early speeches resulted in a demonstration during which US troops fired on demonstraters. The details of the event are unclear: the US claimed that the demonstrations were violent and the demonstraters claimed they weren’t, which is as you’d expect in any case for both sides of the story.

This means that Mosul’s had two governors leave office in the last few months, by the by. Not exactly a model of stability.

The cynical may enjoy being proven right by thirty-odd Fox News memos. It is blatantly clear that Fox News thinks of itself as the conservative defender of truth against the marauding liberal news media.

We have good perp walk video of Eric Rudolph which we should use. We should NOT assume that anyone who supported or helped Eric Rudolph is a racist. No one’s in favor of murder or bombing of public places. But feelings in North Carolina may just be more complicated than the NY Times can conceive.

There’s a not really that subtle difference between saying that Rudolph’s supporters had complex motivations and saying that they made a mistake. One excuses supporting a terrorist, and one does not. Consider this statement: “No one’s in favor of murder or bombing of public places. But feelings in Palestine may just be more complicated than Fox News can conceive.” Somehow I can’t imagine Fox News taking that tack.

Newsweek reports that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into ways to postpone the November Presidential election in the case of an Al Qaeda attack.

But the success of March’s Madrid railway bombings in influencing the Spanish elections—as well as intercepted “chatter” among Qaeda operatives—has led analysts to conclude “they want to interfere with the elections,” says one official.

Forcing a delay in elections is every bit as much interference, if not more so, as an attack which causes people to change their vote. This is so obvious that I have trouble believing that it’s escaped the Bush administration.

Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. Homeland officials say that as drastic as such proposals sound, they are taking them seriously—along with other possible contingency plans in the event of an election-eve or Election Day attack.

Contingency plans are good. Legislation that could delay the election is bad. Sure, if something happens to LA the day of the election, it would be good to hold the results until the voters of Los Angeles can vote — but it does not make sense to keep the entire country from voting in a situation where they could reasonably get to the polls.