Debbie Schlussel: Amen, Michael Smerconish: Great Column on Profiling--"Skip the Grannies"
Well before I started doing weekly movie reviews on Michael Smerconish's top-rated Philadelphia morning radio show on WPHT, I was a fan of his columns.
Michael's column in today's Philadelphia Daily News, "Skip the Grannies: The Case for Airport Profiling," is excellent.
Here's an excerpt:
Profiling is street smarts by any other name. It's the common-sensical recognition that while America is not threatened by an entire community, she is under siege by a certain element of an identifiable group, and law enforcement needs to target its resources accordingly.
The failure to profile is a dereliction of duty on the part of an administration that has otherwise been willing to incur the wrath of civil libertarians as it aggressively fights the war on terror.Only last week, in the aftermath of the thwarted attack emanating from the U.K., did the president appear to take a step in the direction of profiling when at last, he acknowledged with specificity those who threaten our survival:
"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom."
Hopefully now there will be a long overdue confrontation of the Emperor Has No Clothes charade whereby law enforcement is mandated to ignore the naked barbarism of radical Islam. The arrest of two dozen in connection with the latest, failed plan should change that. After all, they are the same-old, same-old. I refer to Messrs. Ali, Ali, Ali, Hussain, Hussain, Hussain, Islam, Kayani, Khan, Khan, Kha-tib, Patel, Rauf, Saddique, Sarwar, Savant, Tariq, Uddin and Zaman. To a person they are Muslim men.
Where some would highlight the slight differences among them--class, upbringing and whether they were raised Muslim or converted to Islam--I see the commonalities. Equally significant is who they are not.
They are not Americans. They are not urban blacks. They are not suburban whites. They are not Jews. They are not Hispanics. They are not members of the U.S. military, women, senior citizens or young kids. At a minimum, it is time to profile by exclusion.
Read the whole thing.
He has a special expertise on this topic because he wrote an entire tome on the topic, "Flying Blind: How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11." Check out Michael's other book: "Muzzled: From T-Ball to Terrorism--True Stories that Should Be FictionMichael's site/blog.
Posted by Debbie on August 17, 2006 04:36 PM to Debbie Schlussel