This ridiculous tale has been percolating around the blogosphere (y!sctp). If true, despicable behavior on the part of the Bush-ites.
The ironic thing is that Walter F Murphy is no knee-jerk liberal bleeding heart. I mean, he opposes Roe v. Wade, and supported the wing-nut Alito, etc.
But Professor Murphy had the temerity to participate in a public criticism of President Bush. As every American knows, peace is the enemy of the State, and anyone who speaks out against The Dauphin is also an enemy of the State.
Balkinization
“On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving.”“When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years.”
“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: ”Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.“ I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. ”That'll do it,“ the man said. ”
“After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: ”I must warn you, they=re going to ransack your luggage.“ On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was ”lost.“ Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this ”loss“ could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical.”
If the story is not true (as is speculated), I find it amazing that so many people find it easy to believe it is true, based strictly on previous outrageous stories that turned out to be factual (Maher Arar, Senator Kennedy, Mr. Masri, et al). We really are not far from being a tin-pot dictatorship, are we?
I also have not read of a single conservative Bush-arse-licker who was erroneously placed on the “No Fly” list; perhaps they just kept quiet so as not to embarrass Dear Leader?
Tags: Bush_donor, /civil_liberties, /civil_rights
