Is That Legal?

Arab owned as in owned by an Arab government, Eric.

You should pick specifically on Glenn. That's his rhetorical style. He'll link to some rabid vilification that's demonstrably wrong and tag it with some variation of "I certainly hope this is false", spreading the propaganda while washing his hands of it.

Polybius; First, there's no indication that Reynolds knew that Dubai Ports World is government owned and reason to believe that he didn't (e.g. a previous reference to the company as being "based in the United Arab Emirites"). Second, even if he meant "Arab government-owned", the sentence still comes out pretty racist. Would you be comfortable with an argument that started, "It's certainly true that not every White-led government is prone to genocide, but..."?

Evidently, making it tough for students to get visas (like the two 9/11 attackers from Dubai, private citizens) is wrongheaded racial profiling; but discriminating against a country that is an ally in the GWOT based on race, ethnicity, or religion, is just fine...

Well, it's taken five years, but Bush and Malkin have finally found a form of invidious profiling that Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy (as well as Hastert and Frist) can throw their weight behind. It's good to see this kind of bi-partisanship, even if it is in our fairly despicable national pasttime of "hit the Arab with the Fungo bat." I bet this will help with winning hearts & minds in the GWOT. Jeez, at this rate, Bush might as well have just withheld his condemnation of Denmark, for all the good that did him... Good thing that the terror threat is greatly exaggerated and nothing of import is at stake here.

We must hate someone; do you have a better suggestion than Arabs? Republicans hate Democrats, extreme right and left hate the center. The center hates the right and left. The very left hates the middle left. Same goes for right. Lefties hate Jews (they call it Israel). Etc.

Do you want to start a depression?

When you can imagine a day when an Arab country contracts its port security out to Finkelstein and Sons (who *could* have been doctors, but, sigh, went into port management), please let me know. Not saying there is not racism involved here, but it's no different than the "does it makes sense to search old ladies at the airport" business. It's playing probabilities. The scary part is how little review this got, no matter *who* the firm was. There are already known crony connections. Those alone should elicit further review. Maybe we'll find Kerik has a connection to them. Nothing would surprise me anymore.