The New York Times Endorses Porn Scanners and Sexual Assault

There is no more Progressive Politically Correct entity in the country than the staff of the New York Times, and after ignoring the ongoing sexual assault and humiliation of the traveling public, the PC mavens finally have weighed in: the entire outcry is nothing more than a right-wing plot hatched by some Republicans in Congress.

Not surprisingly, they get the facts wrong, but facts never meant anything to the NYT, anyway. Just ask the lacrosse players at Duke University, who were victimized by the fantasies of “magic towels” and other such nonsense by NYT “journalists” who insisted beyond all reason that Michael Nifong was a Great Prosecutor. The editorial today is in that same line.

This editorial is so bad and yet so typical of the Progressivist mindset that I will go through it paragraph by paragraph to show just how delusional they have become at the “Newspaper of Record.”

In their eagerness to pin every problem in America on President Obama, prominent Republicans are now blaming his administration for the use of full-body scanners and intrusive pat-downs at airports. Those gloved fingers feeling inside your belt? The hand of big government, once again poking around where it should not go.

Yes, how DARE anyone even think that government agents grabbing your privates are doing wrong! They are just keeping you safe, don’cha know? Given that Obama’s administration is in charge of the TSA, it might be a logical conclusion to draw that his people have given the order, but maybe it was Goldstein.

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a Republican presidential hopeful, called the scanners and the pat-downs a “humiliating and degrading, totally unconstitutional intrusion,” in an interview on Fox News. If the president thinks such searches are appropriate, Mr. Huckabee said, he should subject his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law to them. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said the Transportation Security Administration had gone too far, and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas suggested T.S.A. agents be sent to the Mexican border, where he said, absurdly, that “we need security substantially more than in our airports.”

What is interesting here is that the NYT wants us to believe that such claims are false on their faces. Conversely, the implication is that anyone who believes that such activities are “degrading” obviously is a delusional right-winger. (I’m sure that they have special words for Rep. Ron Paul, as not only does he oppose sexual assaults in the airport, but he also does not believe in the Wholesome and Good Federal Reserve.)

Seeing conservative Republicans accuse the Obama administration of trying too hard to protect America from terrorists is a remarkable spectacle of contortion. But many of them are making a far more pernicious point. They want the government to start “profiling” passengers on the basis of ethnicity or nationality or personal history to single out those most likely to commit terrorism. That would spare decent people from the indignity of a backscatter machine. (emphasis mine)

Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, who is in line to become chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence in January, said profiling “only makes sense” to narrow the targets. Mr. Huckabee wants to do the same, as does Rush Limbaugh, and, inevitably, Sarah Palin, who recently sent out the following message on Twitter: “TSA: why politically incorrect 2 ‘profile’ anyone re: natl security issues? we profile individuals/suspects in other situations! profile away.”

Now, I am no fan of the people they quote and will stand against them in their endorsement of their wars against Muslims, but notice (as we shall see soon enough) that the NYT’s outrage is selective.

It is bad enough that many of these politicians seem happy to trade away a long and proud history of civil liberties over a few moments of inconvenience in the airport. But even beyond the violation of such a basic principle, it has long been clear that the substitution of profiling for searches simply doesn’t work. The T.S.A. already pulls aside travelers for extra searching and questioning based on their nationality and travel patterns. (Emphasis mine)

This is something one must read to believe. Here is the NYT claiming that any kind of profiling is bad, and then wanting us to believe that the outright sexual assault and humiliation — a violation of rights in anyone’s book — is nothing more than “a few moments of inconvenience.” This is unbelievable, and it attests to the outright dishonesty of Progressivism and the NYT.

But terrorists, tragically, aren’t fools, and constantly adapt to the screening regimes. Before the T.S.A. started searching for bombs in shoes, underwear or printer cartridges, that’s where they were hidden. If terrorists learn that elderly white women from Iowa are exempt from screening, that’s exactly whom they will recruit. (Emphasis mine)

This is a howler. Yeah, “elderly white women from Iowa” are just lining up, wanting to put explosives in their underwear so they can blow themselves into oblivion for a religion of which they are not part. This is so laughable that only a Progressive could believe it.

Some individual pat-downs have gone too far, and the T.S.A. was ham-handed in answering those concerns. But the Obama administration should weather this storm by realizing these attacks are purely partisan and ideological. Americans know the difference between a big scanner and big government.

Yes, the NYT covers its tail, but then declares that if one complains about such things, one is doing it ONLY out of ideology. This is rich. The NYT is a bastion of Progressivist ideology, which holds that government “experts” should have control of our lives and tell us what we can eat, what we can wear, what jobs we can do, and so on. Yet, when people point out that what is happening at airports is evil, why, that is nothing but “ideology” and should be ignored.

If one wishes to understand the mentality of Washington and Progressives in general, this editorial is a good place to start. In the end, it is another example of: Submit to the State!

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7:46 am on November 24, 2010