See What Political Correctness Hath Wrought!

Heather McDonald's article in the City Journal shows how untenable the policies of the Department of Transportation have become as a result of political correctness. See for yourself:

"The DoT action against American Airlines was typical. In the last four months of 2001, American carried 23 million passengers and asked ten of them (.00004 percent of the total) not to board because they raised security concerns that could not be resolved in time for departure. For those ten interventions (and an 11th in 2002), DoT declared American a civil rights pariah, whose discriminatory conduct would 'result in irreparable harm to the public' if not stopped.
On its face, the government's charge that American was engaged in a pattern of discriminatory conduct was absurd, given how few passenger removals occurred. But the racism allegation looks all the more unreasonable when put in the context of the government's own actions. Three times between 9/11 and the end of 2001, public officials warned of an imminent terror attack. Transportation officials urged the airlines to be especially vigilant. In such an environment, pilots would have been derelict not to resolve security questions in favor of caution."

Here's another choice paragraph:

In application, the government's "but-for" test reduces to a "never-ever" rule: ethnic heritage, religion, or national origin may play no role in evaluating risk. But when the threat at issue is Islamic terrorism, it is reckless to ask officials to disregard the sole ironclad prerequisite for being an Islamic terrorist: Muslim identity. American officials may still be terrified about naming the threat, but a few Arab commentators are willing to say what the Bush administration will not: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims," wrote Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the influential Al Arabiya television station, after the school massacre in Beslan, Russia.

Why do we bother spending billions on Homeland Security and then penalize airlines with multi-million dollar lawsuits when they act in the interest of the flying public. We all knew this "non-profiling" was taking place. How outrageous is it when old white ladies in wheel chairs are singled out and patted down in search of explosives! As Dennis Prager stated today comparing Israel's policies with the DoT's policies, "We look for bombs while the Israelis look for bombers." How can we look for bombers when they all look like guys from the Middle East? Are you suggesting that we "profile?"