Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Story Of Blame

by digby

Think Progress has a post up today about the somewhat loony conspiracy theories coming out of the right wing and they highlight The New York Times articlee from a couple of weeks ago about the noise machine’s plans to airbrush history, torture Obama and blame the Democrats for the economic crisis. It sounds ridiculous, of course, but then most of what these people come up with sounds ridiculous. (I would guess that the right wing is far from fully invested in this, and further that this “plan” has as much to do with ratings, membership lists and donation than any serious political plan.)

Having said that, it would be a mistake to dismiss it as the rantings of a bunch of irrelevant losers. I think that if the administration is able to wrangle the congress effectively and begin to reverse the economic slide fairly quickly (and keep the world from imploding) that their support will remain strong and they’ll be given credit by the people. But, if the pessimists are correct and this recession gets worse and the pain starts to spread widely then these crazy rantings may be taken more seriously by more people than we might think. Economic hardship can turn things sour in a hurry.

The right wing understands something that progressives just refuse to engage in and that is that most people, particularly the media, understand their world through stories. And so they consciously craft plots and narratives to explain events that favor their worldview. Right now, after eight years of Bush and a decisive election repudiating Republican rule, it seems impossible to believe that their story makes any sense to people. But they will tell it anyway, full in the knowledge that within a few months any talk of Bush will be as stale as Rickrolling and the focus will be completely on Obama. And they will already be well on their way to setting forth an alternate reality that slides neatly into familiar grooves worn smooth by decades of right wing propaganda.

I do not believe it is inevitable that they will persuade enough people to buy their narrative that they can turn around their political fortunes. The failures of conservatism are manifest and huge. But beyond some vague idea that politics has been too partisan I don’t believe people have heard a story that really explains it yet and until we see real progress manifested in real life by an Obama administration, I’m not sure that people have anything other than some vague hope that the other guys should be given a chance. It certainly doesn’t mean that a new narrative of progress and competence won’t naturally just emerge, but it’s going to take time. And during that time, the right will be spinning their epic tale of Democratic irresponsibility, fecklessness and elitism, among other things, while Democrats refuse to publicly engage.

It seems to me that progressives have to devote at some energy to battling the right on this, even if the party and the administration don’t want us to. Pretending they are losers who don’t matter is just plain foolish. They are good at this sort of thing and if the economy has not hit bottom, as some very smart people with excellent track records believe, then the pain could start to get much more acute for a large number of people. And they will be looking for ways to understand what has happened to them. It would be a shame if the conservative freakshow were the only ones with a ready narrative on offer.

Nobody has yet repudiated conservatism or explained why the country is in this mess, because Democrats decided that they didn’t want to play the blame game. And if we’re lucky, it won’t matter because the country will turn around quickly, the Democrats will get the credit and the modern conservative movement will slink off into obscurity having been rendered irrelevant for all time by the the irrefutable progressive success of Barack Obama and the Democratic congress. But I think it’s a mistake to assume that’s how it will go.

Along with good policy, you need rhetoric and narratives that give people something to believe in — and someone to blame. History has shown that it’s never smart to let demagogues go unanswered under the assumption that people will see through them, particularly in a time of great stress and dislocation.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Earsplittenloudenboomer

By Dennis Hartley

Cruise: A patchy uprising.

One of my favorite throwaway lines from the original 1968 film version of Mel Brooks’ The Producers is uttered by psychedelicized thespian Lorenzo St. Dubois (Dick Shawn), star of the fictional Broadway musical romp Springtime for Hitler. After “Goebbels” (David Patch) carelessly tosses a lit reefer into a vase, making it explode, our “Hitler” turns to the audience and bemoans in mock consternation: “They try; man, how they try!”

Man, how they tried. By 30 April 1945, the day Adolph Hitler finally put us all out of his misery by treating himself to a cyanide cocktail, followed by a Walther PPK 7.65mm caliber chaser, there had been no less than 17 (documented) schemes/attempts to take him out. The would-be assassins ranged from military officers (captains to field marshals) to members of his trusted inner circle (including Armaments Minister Albert Speer, who toyed with the idea of sending poison gas down the ventilator shaft of his Berlin bunker in early 1945). It looked like Hitler was going to be tougher to get rid of than Rasputin.

The most famous attempt, codenamed “Valkyrie”, was spearheaded by an idealistic German nationalist named Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, an army staff officer who ingratiated himself into one of the more well-organized consortiums within the German resistance movement. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg, who had finagled himself into a position which gave him clearance to attend Hitler’s military strategy meetings, managed to smuggle a briefcase full of timed plastic explosives into a conference at the “Wolf’s Lair”. He slipped the briefcase under the table, close to where Hitler was positioned, excused himself to take an “important call”, and waited outside for the earth-shattering ka-boom. Once all hell broke loose, Stauffenberg made a beeline to Berlin to initiate the next phase of the plot, ostensibly an elaborate coup that entailed neutralizing the SS and mobilizing the reserve army (under an emergency contingency government reorganization plan that ironically had been set up by Hitler himself). It almost worked (except for the part where they forgot to check Hitler’s pulse before proceeding with Step 2). The day did not end well for Stauffenberg and several other key conspirators; they did not live to see the next sunrise (they faced the firing squad just after midnight).

This true-life tale contains all the thrills, suspense and complex plotting of a ripping WW2 yarn by Alistair MacLean, except that in this case, the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are all…the “bad guys” (i.e., based on the traditional Hollywood depiction of WW2 era Germans). This presents an interesting dilemma for a filmmaker. It is only in recent years that we have seen films that (for better or for worse) posit a relatively objective view of what the Second World War looked like from the perspective of the Germans. Now, I am not an apologist (I had many distant relatives who perished in concentration camps, and the very sight of a swastika makes me physically ill) but it is a fact that not every single person who lived in Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a blindly obedient member of the National Socialist Party who worshipped Hitler. There was an active military and civilian resistance movement that flourished during that era.

One of the earliest films to lurch in that direction was Edward Dmytryk’s The Young Lions(1958) which featured among its three principal characters a conflicted Nazi lieutenant (played by Marlon Brando) who was devoted to duty, yet palpably repulsed by the inhumanity being perpetrated in the name of the Fatherland. Cabaret (1972) tentatively touched on the idea of the anti-Nazi sentiment within Germany, but the story ends just as Hitler is coming to power, so in historical context, his full capacity for avarice and evil would have still been an unknown quantity to the general populace at the time. Das Boot (1981) was probably the first film to portray members of the Nazi era German military in a “sympathetic” light (again, for better or for worse) and also was one of the first to feature characters expressing anti-Hitler sentiment (in this case, U-Boat crewmen) Then again, this was not a Hollywood production (it was originally produced for German TV). And tangentially, we have Schindler’s List (1993) which ultimately has the audience cheering for an unlikely hero-an (initially) opportunistic Nazi businessman who profited from the abundance of cheap labor provided by concentration camps.

All of which now inevitably (unavoidably?) brings us to the latest Tom Cruise vehicle, Valkyrie, reuniting director Bryan Singer with his screenwriter for The Usual Suspects , Christopher McQuarrie (who co-scripted with Nathan Alexander). Cruise stars as Col. Stauffenberg-stern of jaw, steely of gaze and nattily resplendent in polished jackboots and matching eye patch. To the chagrin of some, he is also completely bereft of a German accent. This is really a moot point, because most of his co-stars are sporting British accents. Since we know that everybody in this story is German, it’s only a momentary distraction (like when Tony Curtis informs Spartacus that he is “…a singah of sooangs.”)

Singer showcases his prowess for well-staged action sequences in a slam-bang battle scene early on the film that depicts how Stauffenberg suffered his disfiguring wounds (he lost an eye, one of his hands and several additional fingers while serving in North Africa). As he recovers from his injuries, we catch a glimpse of his family life, and glean the sense of a warm relationship with his children and his devoted wife (Carice van Houten). As the tides of the war turn against the Reich, Stauffenberg comes to realize that Hitler’s hopes for victory are turning more delusional by the day and can only lead to the complete annihilation of his beloved Germany, so he decides that he must be stopped.

The film recreates several other assassination attempts by Stauffenberg and his associates which preceded the conference room bombing at Wolf’s Lair in July 1944. The final attempt is quite riveting, tautly directed and full of nail-biting suspense. Unfortunately, however the film is marred by an abrupt ending; the split second after Cruise has his Big Death Scene, it’s time to fade to black and roll credits (it’s probably in his contract rider).

Another problem is Cruise himself. Yes, he is a Movie Star, right down to those dazzling choppers, but try as he might over the years (bless his heart), he is just simply not cut out to be a character actor. The real Stauffenberg was a complex person; a fervent German nationalist, an aristocrat, politically conservative and introspectively philosophical by nature. All I kept seeing up on that screen was…Tom Cruise with an eye patch. Don’t get me wrong, when a part is tailor made for his particular brand of energy (Risky Business , Jerry Maguire , Magnolia) he can be undeniably appealing and genuinely charismatic. However, the role of one Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg is not one of those parts.

Two supporting performances are particular standouts; the always-excellent Tom Wilkinson as General Fromm, and Bill Nighy as General Olbricht. A couple other venerable Brits are on board (Terrence Stamp and Kenneth Branagh) but they aren’t given too much room to flex (perhaps Producer Tom didn’t want to be upstaged).

Singer does have a keen eye for historical detail. Several key scenes were filmed on location, most significantly the recreation of Stauffenberg’s execution, which was staged in the very Berlin courtyard where the original incident took place (that courtyard now contains a memorial to the conspirators, who are regarded as national heroes in Germany). History buffs (guilty!) will likely be more forgiving regarding the film’s shortcomings and just enjoy it as a straightforward WW2 action thriller. Tom Cruise fans will see it regardless of critical opinion, and the rest may want to just wait for the DVD.

Previous posts with related themes: Black Book/The Good German

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No More Debate: Defend It Or End It?

by dday

One of the better side effects of Obama’s inauguration is that we can finally stop the endless theoretical arguments in the blogosphere about how he means to govern. Whether he’s a cautious centrist who will fulfill his campaign promises in incremental ways and do little to challenge Beltway assumptions, or he’s a secret progressive who has been hiding his true intentions and employing scores of cabinet members from the political center to give himself breathing space to implement sweeping progressive policies, we’ll know soon enough and the exhausting parlor game of pondering will be over. One early test will come in the case of Ali al-Marri, where an Obama Administration will have to provide an opinion on where they stand on key Constitutional issues such as the rule of law, executive power and detainee policy in the “war on terror.”

Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama made broad statements criticizing the Bush administration’s assertions of executive power. But now he must address a specific case, that of Ali al-Marri, a Qatari student who was arrested in Peoria, Ill., in December 2001. The Bush administration says Mr. Marri is a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, and it is holding him without charges at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He is the only person currently held as an enemy combatant on the mainland, but the legal principles established in his case are likely to affect the roughly 250 prisoners at Guantánamo.

It’s almost unquestionable that al-Marri cannot have a fair trial in US courts without acquittal, as a substantial portion of the evidence against him is likely to have been acquired through the use of torture. Bush’s intel officials consider al-Marri dangerous and unable to deport. And yet the legal claims made by the Bush team, that the executive has the right to indefinitely detain an American citizen (and in established practice, a legal resident of the United States has the same right to due process), without charges, and hold them inside the United States as long as they wish, is abhorrent and must be disavowed. Obama has already disavowed this during the campaign.

A year ago, Mr. Obama answered a detailed questionnaire concerning his views on presidential power from The Boston Globe. “I reject the Bush administration’s claim,” Mr. Obama said, “that the president has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”

That sounds vigorous and categorical. But applying this view to Mr. Marri’s case is not that simple. Although he was in the United States legally, he was not an American citizen. In addition, a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force arguably gave the president the authority that Mr. Obama has said is not conferred by the Constitution alone.

Still, Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who has generally supported the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism, said Mr. Obama’s hands are tied. He cannot, Mr. McCarthy said, continue to maintain that Mr. Marri’s detention is lawful.

“I don’t think politically for him that’s a viable option,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Legally, it’s perfectly viable.”

Big thanks to Mr. McCarthy for setting the boundaries of what is politically viable for a new President.

Anonymous Liberal has a very good post laying out the options for the Obama Administration:

I do expect that the Obama administration will make some concessions, though. The most likely, it seems to me, is a concession that the basis for originally detaining al-Marri was improper. Remember, al-Marri was already in federal custody and facing trial on criminal charges when the Bush administration transferred him to military custody. There’s little question that this move was made for interrogation purposes. The government had been trying to pressure al-Marri into talking, but he was intent on going to trial. So instead they transferred him to military custody and held him incommunicado for 18 months in order to extract information from him (probably by unlawful techniques).

Even if you assume that the President, pursuant to the AUMF, has the authority to military detain al Qaeda “combatants” found legally residing within the U.S., the justification for such detention has to be limited to incapacitation, to preventing the combatant from returning to the “battlefield” and doing more harm. That’s the purpose of detention under the laws of war. In this case, al-Marri was already in custody on a criminal matter. He was incapacitated and there was no chance of him “returning to the battlefield.” Under those circumstances, transferring him to military custody is not justified, even if you accept all of the government’s premises.

This a real test for the Obama administration. If they don’t back off at least some of the positions taken by the Bush administration in this case, it will leave a lot of people (myself very much included) very disappointed and angry.

We have a group in power currently that has no problem reconciling the dissonance between prosecuting foreigners for torture while allowing those inside the government who directed and authorized the same to go free. This is what has diminished America’s standing in the world and strained relations with allies. If the Obama Administration continues operating under this double standard, insisting that other countries respect human rights and international agreements while declining to do the same, he will find it impossible to convince the world that anything resembling change has come to America, as well as most of us in this country as well. The future of the rule of law, badly crippled through eight years, is at stake.

And within a month, there won’t need to be any more debate about it – the first filing in the case is due the Monday after Inauguration Day.

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Heretics and Heroes

by digby

Lambert links to this Krugman blog post and a Wall Street Journal article revisiting a meeting of economists back in 2005.

Krugman:

Two things are really striking here. First is the obsequiousness toward Alan Greenspan. To be fair, the 2005 Jackson Hole event was a sort of Greenspan celebration; still, it does come across as excessive — dangerously close to saying that if the Great Greenspan says something, it must be so. Second is the extreme condescension toward Rajan — a pretty serious guy — for having the temerity to suggest that maybe markets don’t always work to our advantage. Larry Summers, I’m sorry to say, comes off particularly badly. Only my colleague Alan Blinder, defending Rajan “against the unremitting attack he is getting here for not being a sufficiently good Chicago economist”, emerges with honor.

As Lambert points out, the words condescension and obsequious are perfect descriptors for a whole range of village behaviors on any number of issues.

Greenspan is, of course, an uber-villager, married to one of the most important beltway media mavens and who, for the past two decades, was considered a living example of the the non-partisan wise man. Except,of course, he was actually an Ayn Rand extremist who grubbed around in politics with as much glee as any Louisiana congressman. But you couldn’t say that. In fact, during the 2000 election we came close to having him legally declared a living God — a Pharoah of Finance, who could not be questioned lest the sun turn cold.

Why anyone ever thought that a man who openly followed a creed which literally claims that captains of industry can do no wrong because capitalism is a moral system based upon self-interest was anything but a fool is beyond me, but they didn’t. He was in a state of “shocked disbelief” when that turned out not to be true:

“I have found a flaw,” said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.

I wouldn’t have believed that anyone but the most starry eyed 17 year old John Galt fanboy could be that naive. But he was and most of the Greenspan groupies and sycophants never questioned it. But everyone should have known it — it’s a fundamental Ayn Rand tenet, which holds a puerile, romantic view of human nature that nobody but a fool would take seriously. And yet, for two decades the man was the national financial genius who could not be opposed or lest one risked expulsion from the village.

He is one of the reasons I no longer have any trust at all in the great man theory. I know that people need heroes, but in our celebrity worshiping culture we take it to such ridiculous extremes that it turns dissent and questions into heresy. I no longer find it particularly useful to think in those terms much at all.

Greenspan may be one who stands out considering the horrifying ramifications, but there are many of these elders whose “reputations” have led us straight into disaster. (Colin Powell comes to mind.) Maybe it’s time America gives the hero/wise man/guru concept a rest.

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Unsheathing Her Claws

by digby

Ann Coulter has a new book coming out. (I know, feel the magic.) According to the Daily News, she disses Michele Obama hard, particularly for wearing Jackie Kennedy style sheath dresses with fake pearls and flipped-under hair.

First of all, Jackie had a very famous bouffant hairdo when she was in the white house. And she never wore fake pearls in her life.

But she did wear simple sheath style dresses. In fact, a lot of people still do.

I guess when you have no shame, you can pretty much say anything without being embarrassed.

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Kill the Senate Appointment Process

by dday

The situation with Rod Blagojevich is pulling a scab off of the Senate appointment process, with all the various players and all of the backroom deals. Blagojevich may have wanted to sell the seat to the highest bidder, but competing interests had their own views on the pick, including Harry Reid, who wanted to sell the seat to the most “electable” candidate:

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.

Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero confirmed that Reid (D-Nev.) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — the new chief of the Senate Democratic political operation — each called Blagojevich’s campaign office separately Dec. 3. Sources believe that at least portions of the phone conversations are on tape.

We now have an outline of what happens in the event of a Senate vacancy. Local leaders and electeds call the Governor with their views. Potential candidates call the Governor, and run mini-“campaigns” in the media and among state elites. The Senate leadership from the particular party and their chief campaign operative calls. If the seat involves the President-elect, someone from their office calls. All of them have their own offers to make, and one assumes at leaast some of them go beyond n exchange of “appreciation.”

As Chris Bowers notes, the fact that Reid didn’t want three black candidates to be selected because of electability suggests that he doesn’t think Roland Burris is particularly electable either, putting a new spin on the efforts to block the Capitol door and stop the appointment.

One of the major problems here is the corruption associated with the concept of “electability” itself. Not only is it anti-democratic, but in truly retrograde fashion it reinforces oppressive cultural perceptions–such as African-Americans being unelectable, and Democrats needing to turn to veteran’s in order to shore up foreign policy credentials–rather than challenging them. To a large extent, the Constitutional method of appointing Senators, rather than holding special elections, is itself to blame. Additionally, the lack of intra-party democracy and top-down elitism of our political process is also to blame. None of these problems would have occurred if we had simply held an election, and engaged in the radical experiment of letting the people decide.

Yep. It’s called influence-peddling, and it’s the natural outgrowth of an election process where one man or woman casts the deciding vote. The less people there are involved in a decision of this nature, the more potential for corruption. It’s just common sense.

Section 2 of the Seventeenth Amendment reads like this:

“When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”

The amendment is written specifically to provide for a special election, but allowing for temporary appointments in the interim if the legislature of the state allows it. The legislatures, then, could DISALLOW such an appointment, and move to undertake the special election with all deliberate speed instead of the next November in the two-year cycle. There are potentially ways for the legislature to limit the power of the appointment process (say, providing a list of names from the state party of the former officeholder, as they do in Wyoming), but there’s a pretty strong case to made that such limits are unconstitutional, and before long some Governor with their back up (probably a Republican) will contest that. So the solution here is to either compel state legislatures to disallow temporary appointments, or to write a NEW Constitutional amendment, taking the appointment process away from the Governors, which is fully keeping with the Constitution, as these are seats for federal office.

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Portrait Of A Jackass

by digby

Don’t read this puff piece on Bush if you’ve just eaten lunch. Apparently, despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s a sensitive, intelligent leader with a heart of gold. He’s been very misunderstood. (No mention of the massive, overwhelming failure of his policies and decisions.)

Despite the writer’s obvious fondness for the Bushian personality, it actually confirms everything I ever assumed about him. He’s a self-centered, authoritarian jerk who requires everyone to bow and scrape before him, even though he’s an idiot. I’ve known plenty of people like him. He’s America’s mean ex-husband and the country can’t wait to sign the final divorce decree.

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Totally Different

by digby

Jonathan Schwarz takes a trip down Israel’s Memory Lane and finds something interesting:

The funny thing about the Israeli attack on Gaza following its long blockade is that Israel’s original justification for taking over Gaza in 1967 was that Israel was being subject to a blockade. This is from the official Knesset history of the Six Day War:

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser blockaded the Straits of Tiran on May 21st and 22nd to all shipping from and to Eilat; the area was open to Israeli ships under UN supervision since 1957, and Israel repeatedly stated that such a blockade will be considered as casus belli (justification for acts of war).

Ooops.

Jonathan also does a search and finds that nobody in journalism seems to drawn attention to this obvious parallel in all the talk about blockade and retaliation.

How odd.

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Breaking With The Past

by digby

Peter Berkowitz has written an op-ed in the WSJ that lays out a bold new direction for the Republican Party. He calls it “Constitutional Conservatism” which he defines as being devoted to the preservation of constitutional principles. What good news.

He lays out this bold new agenda in some detail:

– An economic program, health-care reform, energy policy and protection for the environment grounded in market-based solutions.

– A foreign policy that recognizes America’s vital national security interest in advancing liberty abroad but realistically calibrates undertakings to the nation’s limited knowledge and restricted resources.

– A commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.

– A focus on reducing the number of abortions and increasing the number of adoptions.

– Efforts to keep the question of same-sex marriage out of the federal courts and subject to consideration by each state’s democratic process.

– Measures to combat illegal immigration that are emphatically pro-border security and pro-immigrant.

– A case for school choice as an option that enhances individual freedom while giving low-income, inner-city parents opportunities to place their children in classrooms where they can obtain a decent education.

– A demand that public universities abolish speech codes and vigorously protect liberty of thought and discussion on campus.

– The appointment of judges who understand that their function is to interpret the Constitution and not make policy, and, therefore, where the Constitution is most vague, recognize the strongest obligation to defer to the results of the democratic process.

Whoa Nellie, bar the door. I don’t think they can take all that change in one fell swoop do you? Talk about bold new thinking!

I especially enjoy the idea that “constitutional conservatism” means “a commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.”

You have to love them. They just can’t help themselves.

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Talking While Brown

by dday

I know that Barack Obama’s election ended all racial strife in America, but somebody forgot to tell the TSA.

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother’s wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

“My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security,” Irfan said. “The only thing my brother said was, ‘Wow, the jets are right next to my window.’ I think they were remarking about safety.”

Serves them right, making small talk to one another on a plane. While being dark-skinned and Muslim-looking at that!

The TSA and AirTran ended up taking everyone off the plane and re-screening them and their luggage, before allowing them to take off – only without that trouble-making family. According to TSA, this is an example of the system working.

Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the pilot acted appropriately.

“For us, it just highlights that security is everybody’s responsibility,” Howe said. “Someone heard something that was inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We certainly support [the pilot’s] call to do that.”

In a society suffused with the “TIPS” program and Total Information Awareness and calls to “watch what you say” and to be on the lookout for suspicious activity, this is what we get. Those cultural signifiers are not easily washed away, the urge to be “alert” and “ready” and “aware” and “on watch”. And ultimately, there are very strict, not-even-subliminal definitions on who we have to watch and who we don’t have to watch. And ethnicity is the dividing line.

George Bush may be leaving office, but the culture of paranoia he helped to usher in most certainly has not. And deputizing Americans to be part of a 300-million-strong network of spies has impacts on public policy, too. After all, how far is it to leap from eavesdropping on conversations at the mall to eavesdropping on phone calls? As long as you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, from a civil liberties standpoint.

One of the biggest changes a President Obama can make, if he cares too, is in the national mood, to reject this presumption of guilt, this culture of fear, this demonization of the other, this automatic transfer of second-class citizenship. There’s no kind of profiling that is more justifiable than any other. It’s all part of a creeping assault on our collective civil liberties and it has to stop.

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