Sunday, August 20, 2006

Note from a Planeful of Arabs

As a rule, I never read, much less comment on, Ann Coulter, who I am convinced is a liberal Democrat pulling the world's longest-running prank on our media. It gets less funny all the time. But on this new column makes me think her column is ghost-written by a 12-year-old in a bunker somewhere:

To pull off a 9/11-style attack now, literally half the passengers on the plane would have to be terrorists. (At least the airport screeners wouldn't have to worry about confiscating a lot of deodorants.)

I think a planeful of Arabs would attract attention — except from people who had recently completed a government training program teaching them not to notice anyone's appearance. Not even a group of liberal Democrats flying off to a Renaissance Weekend would stand for that.


Am I wrong, or does she mean that "Not even a group of liberal Democrats [blah blah blah] would stand for" a "planeful of Arabs"? (And yes, she assumes that non-Arabs wouldn't help out with a terrorist attack. This sort of racist ignorance probably hurts Richard Reid's feelings.)

Anyway, I can assure Ms. Coulter, who has apparently led a rather sheltered life, that planefuls of Arabs arrive in United States airports every day. Not only do liberal Democrats like me stand for it; we ride on them. Just last week, I boarded a planeful of Arabs, and had the best flight of my life. (And imagine: One of my travelling companions, in fact, was a conservative Republican.) They're called planes from the Middle East.

Emirates Airlines, it turns out, is not only a sane and well-run operation, it has 500 channels of movies and TV. I watched "Inside Man" and "Mission Impossible III," and then fell asleep because I was so comfortable and secure.