Michael Ryan makes an Impractical Suggestion

Re: "Talk is cheap: lives are not," from the January 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle."

This column is more evidence Mr. Ryan doesn't read his own newspaper because he makes a ridiculous, impractical suggestion. He states his outrage that every passenger on an airline is going to be scanned and writes, "Rather than assume everyone (sic) a terrorist , why don't we take some practical steps to protect ourselves? Such as: Put everyone on the terrorism 'watch list' on the 'no fly' list. If they're suspected of having terrorist sympathies, why let them fly?"

On page 4A of this same newspaper there's an article entitled, "Experts say Watch Lists a Flawed Tool." The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of people on its watch list, and according to this article, the British have a million people on their watch list. Of these, 99.99% have nothing to do with terrorism and most of the balance have never been convicted of any terrorist related activity. Most are on the list because they're muslim and have similar sounding names as terrorist suspects. Some politicians have even accidentally been put on watch lists. Imagine the chaos and lawsuits that would result, if these innocent people were prevented from getting on a passenger jet. Moreover, these violates the principle Mr. Ryan seems so outraged about--the inconvenience to innocent passengers. Apparently, Mr. Ryan also forgets that in America people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Not only is this evidence that Mr. Ryan doesn't read his own newspaper, but other comments suggest he doesn't even read the syndicated editorials that appear next to his unsigned ones. Mr. Ryan wrote, "Rather than accept the obvious reality that we're at war with radical Muslims, the vast majority of them young males, we will continue scanning grandma for explosives. Fact is, grandma might want to update her unmentionables: Soon she'll be subject to even more privacy invasions with full-body scanners that strip her bare." Mr. Ryan obviously didn't read Charles Krauthammer's column--the one right next to his own--because Mr. Krauthammer writes, "...Obama did get somewhat serious about the Christmas Day attack. First, he instituted high-level special screening for passengers from 14 countries, the vast majority of which are Muslim with significant Islamist elements. This is the first rational step away from today's idiotic random screening..."

So Mr. Ryan proves his ignorance again. The U.S. is moving more toward a focused profiling of potential terrorists, according to Mr. Krauthammer (no fan of Obama).

The first paragraph of Mr. Ryan's column is more evidence he doesn't read other pundits that appear on his own editorial page. Mr. Ryan wrote that President Obama "finally" admitted we're at war with terrorists. As I noted a few blog entries ago, www.politifact.com rated this claim that Obama wouldn't admit we were at war with terrorists as a "pants on fire lie," but it wasn't necessary for Mr. Ryan to read this website to recognize this lie--Eugene Robinson wrote a column debunking this falsehood last week...a few days before Mr. Ryan plagiarized Dick Cheney by repeating this lie.

Mr. Ryan also joined the chorus of conservative critics demanding that President Obama find a scapegoat for the nearly disastrous Christmas Day attempted attack. President Obama is right not to make the politically convenient decision to blame some individual within the U.S. government unfairly for a mistake made by authorities in the Netherlands.