UPDATED: Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom simultaneously links to this post, and embraces her inner sixth-grader. Click and laugh.
The right is all over this story about Michael Yon being handcuffed and questioned at the Seattle airport. For them, this is an open-and-shut case of overzealous airport security hassling an obviously harmless American citizen. Now, I’m not saying that Yon needed to be arrested, or treated like a security risk. But it’s the reasoning behind the conclusion that I object to. I mean, get a load of these characterizations (links to individual posts can all be found at Memeorandum):
“Milblogger/independent war correspondent extraordinaire Michael Yon…” (Michelle Malkin)”
“I don’t think Mike‘s going to make a federal case of this, but it might be worthwhile to train security folks on what it is they’re doing.” (Greyhawk; bolding is mine)
“The problem is not the airports. The problem is jihad. The war is not at the check in counter. If the response from the O administration is more harassment of Americans [non-Muslim Americans, natch], we have signed our own death warrant.”
That last is Pamela Geller, who throws in her defense of profiling further down:
“But CAIR maintains special status for Muslim supremacists (Muslims Americans who care about this country would be happy to adhere tosecurity guidelines).”
Not non-Muslim Americans, though. They have every right to be outraged if they are stopped and questioned at the airport — no special test for being considered loyal and concerned Americans for them.
Here is another one, from “Stable Hand” at The Jawa Report:
“A freelance journalist puts his life on the line to tell the truth about the war against the terrorists and he gets handcuffed??? God help us all.”
Wow, if that does not say it all. Yon “reports” the various wars that the United States is involved in from the viewpoint of the U.S. military and the supporters of endless war on the far right. There is nothing inherently wrong, unethical, or unprofessional about that — if one is honest about the point of view your reporting represents. But Yon is not, and neither are his cheerleaders.
As for the arrest itself, whether the Canadian Border Police had legitimate concerns or not, I think it might be wise to gather more information before leaping to the conclusion that the airport security people involved are idiots, or that Yon is blameless (in the sense of behaving provocatively; not in the sense of being an actual security threat).
Even James Joyner is skeptical:
We’ve got only Yon’s side of the story thus far and it honestly doesn’t make much sense. While I’ve never flown in and out of Seattle, I’ve flown in and out of the country several times post-9/11 and have never been asked, coming or going, how much I made or anything more personal than “What’s the purpose for your visit?” If, however, they are asking these sort of insipid questions — let alone handcuffing people who refuse to answer them — our airline security system has even more problems than I thought.
Certainly, the blast of arrogant entitlement that wafts off of this:
When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.
is pretty repulsive. Yon would do better to cultivate the sense of humor demonstrated by Joan Rivers after her nightmare experience in Costa Rica — much more harrowing than Yon’s (emphasis is mine):
Joan Rivers was among the many travelers to get snared in the heightened-security frenzy that overtook airports after the December 25th failed terrorist attack. Rivers wasn’t allowed on her Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica this past weekend by a “jittery Continental Airlines gate agent” who thought the two names on her passport, which reads “Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers,” seemed “fishy.” Rivers wrote of her experience:
“If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn’t pick Rosenberg. I’d pick Jolie or Pitt…Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb…I tried the tears; they didn’t work. I tried reasoning. I couldn’t bribe because I didn’t have any money. I said ‘I’m going to have a heart attack over this,’ so the woman called the paramedics.”
Rivers ultimately found someone who “took pity on her” and drove her 6.5 hours to Costa Rica’s main airport in San Jose to get her on a flight back to the U.S. on Monday. Rivers, a wealthy celebrity diva, isn’t necessarily the most sympathetic victim of post-Christmas Day terrorist hysteria, but the New York Daily News notes that many New York-area travelers are reporting similar horror stories. Rivers claims she was signing autographs at the Costa Rican airport while gate agents refused to let her on the flight.
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