NY Times: Bush Should Have Used Racial Profiling to Prevent 9/11

NewsMax.com ^ | 4/12/04 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Don't look now, but the oh-so politically correct New York Times has just endorsed racial profiling as a critical tool in fighting the war on terrorism.

In fact, says the Times, if only President Bush had ordered airports to use "threat profiling" to screen out suspected Muslim terrorists after receiving a CIA warning in August 2001 that al Qaeda was preparing to hijack U.S. airplanes, the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented.

"After receiving that briefing memo entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'," says the Times in Monday's lead editorial, Bush should have departed from his vacation in Crawford, Texas and "rushed back to the White House, assembled all his top advisers and demanded to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit the airlines' threat profiles were being prevented from boarding American planes."

Of course, since all the terrorists mentioned in the August CIA memo were Middle Eastern radical Muslims, passengers of Middle Eastern appearance would have "fit the airline's threat profile."

Hence, under the Times plan, Muslims by the thousands would have been yanked from airport ticket lines for thorough investigation.

But there's a reason that, even after 9/11, anti-terrorist racial profiling is verboten. It's because newspapers like the Times have spent the last 20 years demonizing law enforcement officials who even hint that racial profiling can be an effective way of ferreting out the bad guys.

The anti-profiling taboo has gone so far that often the Times and other like-minded news outlets will leave race out of the mix when describing a criminal suspect who's on the loose.

Alas, had the Times and the brethren not gone off the deep end on racial profiling, perhaps a sensible profiling program would have been in place at Boston's Logan Airport on the morning of 9/11.

[MrB]

So transparent.
Even if they started to profile them NOW, post 9/11, the NY Slimes would get its collective panties in a twist and denounce this gross violation of civil rights.

[PhiKapMom]

Actually burst out laughing when I read the headline. If President Bush had racially profilled Arabs prior to 9-11, the NY Times would have called for his head.

Do these news organizations know how dumb they are looking now?

[skeeter]

NYT endorses racial profiling. What a SCREAM.

Now I'm convinced there is no lengths these leftist crazies won't go to to get back in control.

[Old Sarge]

Do these news organizations know how dumb they are looking now?

You're looking down the MHole, aren't you?

Profiling is a good idea; profiling has ALWAYS been a good idea. Ignorance is strength, Brother...

[hoosiermama]

Thought it was a joke at first......

[TomGuy]

Now, the Libs/Dems are demanding that 9-11-01/Afghanistan/Taliban/al-Qaeda/bin Laden should have been presumptive.

Now, the Libs/Dems are demanding that Iraq/Hussein should not have been presumptive.

Now, how do you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-C-Y?

[rj45mis]

I cannot understand why common sense people will pay money to read a fictional publication like the NYT. I haven't subscribed to a newspaper since 1992, the year the media put Clinton in office.

[Incorrigible]

Carl,

Thanks for pointing out what I was thinking this morning as I listend to Ron Kuby get all worked up over this editorial.

[Sabatier]

That's hilarious. That's funnier than a barrel of monkeys. Though a barrel of monkeys could do a better job of writing the NY Times.

[Dane]

Do these news organizations know how dumb they are looking now?

Probably the answer is no. The NYT is so full of themselves with hubris they would never notice.

[dirtboy]

Now I'm convinced there is no lengths these leftist crazies won't go to to get back in control.

Here they demonstrate yet again that they are devoid of any principle - other than the pursuit of power - and any stated principles are simply matters of political expediency that will be discarded or reversed as soon as they become inconvenient.

This is another of my favorites:

For example, during the 12 years after 1991, the anti-American press was filled with self-righteous hand-wringing over what was billed as the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people under UN sanctions. But when the administration of President George W Bush abandoned the sanctions policy (a policy that, incidentally, had been considered the cautious, moderate course of action when it was originally adopted) in favor of a policy of regime change by military force - which was obviously the only realistic way to end the sanctions - did these dyspeptic howler monkeys praise the United States for trying to alleviate Iraqis' suffering? No, of course not - instead, without batting an eyelash, they simply began criticizing the United States for the "terrible civilian casualties" caused by bombing.

In defense of the Stars and Stripes

[Grig]

Someone needs to do a search of post 9-11 articles warning the administration to NOT respond with raicial profiling, they are legion.

[ihatemyalarmclock]

If President Bush had racially profilled Arabs prior to 9-11, the NY Times would have called for his head.

Exactly. Their "coulda-shoulda" fit 2 1/2 years later is for the sole purpose of making Bush look bad.

[RightWhale]

Intellectual giants at the NYT

[F.J. Mitchell]

The Times should be asking Clinton why he didn't already have Terrorsit (racial-ethnic) profiling in place from the first time the Towers were bombed, if it feels this would work so well.

[Fiddlstix]

Typical NYT.
It's all Bush's fault.

[Junior_G]

Here in Seattle a couple years ago, there was a group of punks going around every night and randomly attacking people----throwing them to the ground, kicking and stomping their heads----real nice stuff. The local media outlets described them as young men with shaved heads and conspicuously did not mention their race because the perpetrators were all black. It's amazing to me that the news media will frequently not even offer the public a physical description of at-large criminals who are not white.

[pointsal]

Golly sakes!! The NYT has taken the flip/flop crown from Botox-Johnnie!

[TomGuy]

Bill Richardson seems to be the 'out front' guy for the Clinton Admin.

He was just on FoxNews with David Asman. He is now shrilling Ashcroft as the villain. He even said Clinton had determined to really go after bin Laden [yeh, righ! when?].

It would seem that the libs/dems couldn't get Dr. Rice, so now they are aiming at Ashcroft.