Mineta Must Go

In today's column for the New York Post, Michelle Malkin summarizes the case for firing our dangerous transportation secretary:

August 9, 2004 -- FEW government officials have invited more scorn than Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. It's long past time for the Bush administration to send him out to pasture.

And it is time for America to purge itself of the addled, anti-profiling mindset of Mineta. He has turned his personal World War II experience into an excuse to do nothing to fight our enemies today.

After 19 Islamist foreign hijackers murdered 3,000 people on American soil, Mineta quickly declared that any profiling taking into account race, ethnicity, religion or nationality would be forbidden in airport security. When 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Mineta whether he could envision any circumstance where it would make sense to use racial and ethnic profiling, he responded, "Absolutely not."

Croft followed up: "If you saw three young Arab men sitting, kneeling, praying, before they boarded a flight, getting on, talking to each other in Arabic, getting on the plane, no reason to stop and ask them any questions?" Mineta remained obstinate: No.

Since that interview, Mineta has shaken down airlines for engaging in profiling and continues to lean on the industry to prevent cautious flight crews from applying heightened scrutiny to any and all Arab/Muslim passengers. United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines have all been forced to settle discrimination cases with the Department of Transportation for a combined $3.5 million. . . .

We cannot win the war on Muslim terrorists as long as we keep learning the wrong lessons of World War II. Mineta is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place. He seeks penance for the past by handcuffing the nation's defenders of the present. To defeat the Islamists, America needs dry-eyed leaders who refuse to be sorry for putting homeland security over hurt feelings.

Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to ask President Bush to remove Mineta, before another 9-11 makes it obvious that he should have done so.

And for more on transportation security lunacy, read Heather Mac Donald's August 5th piece for the Wall Street Journal Our Own Worst Enemy.

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