From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 3:10 P.M. EDT

Murphy's Law?
Left-wing blogs have been abuzz for a couple of days over a post by Mark Graber, a professor of law and government at the University of Maryland. Graber prints a story he received from Walter F. Murphy, a professor emeritus of jurisprudence at Princeton who now lives in New Mexico, about a bad experience Murphy had last month with airport security in Albuquerque. Murphy alleges that the treatment he received was politically motivated.

How credible is this claim? As luck would have it, Kip Hawley, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration visited The Wall Street Journal's office this morning, so we showed him a copy of Graber's post. Here is Murphy's story, as reprinted by Graber, with Hawley's explanation of what happened:

On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving.

When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years.

According to Hawley, the only list a passenger might be on that would prevent him from boarding a plane is the "no fly" list. Since Murphy did ultimately get on the plane, he self-evidently was not on that list. Hawley says it is possible that someone with the same name was on the list; such an error befell Ted Kennedy in 2004.

More likely, though, Murphy was a "selectee"--chosen for heightened security by a process that is part random, part based on a variety of factors, most of which are not publicly disclosed, but which are known to include holding a one-way ticket and purchasing a ticket in cash.

This has happened to us on numerous occasions. If you have ever had a row of S's appear on your boarding pass, and been taken out of the main line at the security checkpoint to have your bags searched, it has happened to you as well. Selectees, Hawley explained to us, are not allowed to check in at curbside but must go to the ticket counter, as in Murphy's case.

Murphy's tale continues:

I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said.

There are two problems with this. First, federal terrorist watch lists are compiled not by political appointees but by career professionals at the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, who, according to Hawley, would balk at any effort to list people for political reasons. Second, airline clerks have no way of knowing why a passenger is a selectee or on the no-fly list; they know only that he is. If the clerk actually said what Murphy claims he did, he was either joking or expressing his own (ill-informed) political opinion.

As we said, Murphy was allowed on the plane:

After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they=re [sic] going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical.

It is true, Hawley said, that TSA agents open the luggage of all selectees (the word "ransack" seems another case of the clerk editorializing). As for Murphy's suspicion that his lost bag on the otherwise trouble-free return flight was taken as some sort of political retaliation, Hawley says: "Give me a break."

Hawley added that if Murphy wishes to file a complaint about the treatment he received, he can do so online through the Homeland Security Department's Traveler Redress Inquiry Program.

But if Murphy's account of the facts is accurate, what happened here was out of the ordinary only inasmuch as the airline clerk--not a government employee--made a sensational and untrue claim, a claim that Murphy himself was eager to believe:

I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could.

Murphy isn't the only one who was eager to believe it. Here are some other comments:

  • Andrew Sullivan: "Just a heads up about what these people [the Bush administration] are up to."

  • Josh Marshall: "Given who Professor Murphy is, I have no doubt this is an accurate account of his particular experience. And it would seem that the people who actually work with the list on a daily basis treat it as a given that the most innocuous and obviously protected forms of criticism of the Bush administration routinely get you on the watch list. That pretty much confirms the truth of what most of us would probably have thought was a harebrained conspiracy theory. Doesn't this deserve more scrutiny?"

  • Matt Stoller: "This Murphy chap sounds like a smart fellow, but he also sounds like someone who profoundly lacks empathy for the situation of others. And those that are shocked by his situation, and at this point there shouldn't be very many of us reading this blog that are, should open our eyes and begin to wake up to what other cavalier violations of civil rights go on around us every day."

  • Rod Dreher: "If this account is true, and if it's true that just going to a peace march puts you at risk for being on the terrorism 'no-fly' list, I'd say Congress had damn well better hold hearings about this at once, and find out just exactly what powers the federal government are exercising against law-abiding citizens who happen to oppose administration policy. We could be deep into Nixon territory."

Now, stop and think about this: We are expected to believe that Murphy was "singled out" for his political views. But this credulous chorus of concurrence proves there is nothing singular about those views. Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall, Matt Stoller and Rod Dreher are among many thousands upon thousands of people who have given speeches, written articles or otherwise publicly declaimed against President Bush.

If the Bush administration were trying to stifle dissent, Murphy's experience would be typical, and Bush's harshest critics would be offering their own stories of airport-security woe--or they would be silenced. Instead, they rush to affirm Murphy's interpretation of his own experience. It is what they want to believe, even though it runs counter to their own experience.

Some people are so blinded by hatred, they're gullible enough to believe anything.

From Battlefield to Butterfield
From "Army Is Cracking Down on Deserters," a story in yesterday's New York Times:

The Army prosecuted desertion far less often in the late 1990s, when desertions were more frequent, than it does now, when there are comparatively fewer.

So the number of prosecutions is going up, despite the decline in the number of desertions? Wow, it's a paradox!

'At What Point Do You Stop Doing What You Think Is Right?'
Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" interviewed John McCain for Sunday's program, and he put this question to the senator:

We've talked about the majority of Americans wanting out of Iraq at this point. I wonder at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?

Wow. Did any reporter ever ask this of an antiwar politician in 2003, when the war was popular? For that matter, has any reporter ever asked a politician this question when the politician is on the liberal side of an issue and the majority on the conservative side?

Unenthusiastic Endorsement Watch
The Buffalo News weighs in on Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria:

It may be fair for the White House and its allies to characterize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria as amateur night diplomacy. . . .

The administration accuses Assad's government of sponsoring anti-Israeli terror groups and of helping, or at least not stopping, anti-American insurgents strike over his border into Iraq. Administration policy is to freeze Assad, as well as the leaders of Iran, out of the company of civilized nations.

There's no particular reason to disagree with the administration's description of what Syria is up to. . . .

Pelosi did have to issue a couple of awkward clarifications during her tour. . . .

Pelosi was a long way from a diplomatic victory in Damascus.

We are, of course, selectively quoting from an editorial endorsing the Pelosi trip. To get a flavor for the whole thing, read this passage (which appeared after the "awkward clarifications" sentences above):

A statement about how Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was ready to negotiate with Syria was quickly clarified to emphasize the widely known condition that the talks could come only after Syria renounces all support for terrorism. But at least she's got some statements to clarify.

It's hard to argue with that!

Metaphor Alert
"A great sea change in American politics, the kind of enlightened leadership that could end the intransigence of the ideological left and right, may have just occurred. If you missed this political tsunami, that could be because its epicenter was in Tallahassee, Fla., not the District of Columbia. It was foisted upon us by a guy named Charlie Crist, not Barack Obama. Obama, a Democratic senator, is the darling of those who are looking to the current field of presidential candidates to produce someone who can end this nation's political self-flagellation. But it is Crist, Florida's Republican governor, who is leading the way toward this promised land."--DeWayne Wickham, USA Today, April 10

If They're Experts, Can't They Make It Easier?
"Experts Say It's Too Hard to Fall Over Accidentally"--headline, Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph, April 10

Timber!
"Normal Guy Fells Woods"--headline, Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.), April 9

News You Can Use
"Don't Default on Your Mortgage Payments"--headline, Lansing (Mich.) State Journal, April 9

Bottom Stories of the Day

Worst Person in the World: 5-Year-Old Suzie!
From a New York magazine profile of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:

It probably won't come as much of a surprise that when Keith Olbermann was a kid, he got the tar kicked out of him on a regular basis. And not by the football team. "I got beat up by girls all the time," says Olbermann. "They literally posted a sign-up sheet and would take turns. I think that's why I've always been such a fan of Mencken's line, 'Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.' I've been afflicted."

Olbermann's affliction began at age 5 . . .

It's been said that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality. Apparently a liberal is someone who's been mugged by little girls.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steve Feyer, Jeff Starck, Alex Garrett, Michael Dowding, Shawn DeMers, John McGee, Scott Wright, Kelly Fogarty, Rod Pennington, Steven Getman, Rod Pipinich, Jerry Rhoden, Stefan Sharkansky and Kathleen Sullivan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

  • Review & Outlook: The left blackballs the Black Caucus.
  • Bret Stephens: An Indonesian man seeks "to create an Islam that will make people smile."
  • Brendan Miniter: Wasn't McCain-Feingold supposed to take big money out of politics?
  • Mark Yost: At the Grand Canyon, the force is with you, young skywalker.

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