Profiling High

by digby

Amanda Carpenter ably defended Sarah Palin’s stunning comments today that Scott Roeder, Dr George Tiller’s assassin, could have been stopped if the authorities had been willing to profile those who belong to radical anti-abortion Christian groups.

Carpenter: All the signals were there. And this gets into the divide of whether or not you think this was an act of terror and if he was motivated by a radical ideology. If you think that someone should have asked him about how his religion was impacting his thinking, that gets into the debate against political correctness. Can you ask him questions about his religious identity? That is the issue here.

Tim Fernholz:I don’t know where political correctness comes into this. If the FBI had evidence that he was talking to extremists, you don’t need to profile him, he’s saying things that are warning signs. A profile is a generalization across the board about an entire group.

Carpenter: But it’s a factor of whether or not his religion had an impact on this. And I think people are afraid to broach that subject because you can get in trouble for religious discrimination and all kinds of other things. That’s what I think the real issues is…

Oh wait, I guess I got that wrong. They were talking about the Ft Hood shooter.

But I certainly do agree that people are afraid to broach all kinds of subjects because you get into trouble for religious discrimination. It’s a real minefield isn’t it?

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