DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, a charismatic and gifted public speaker who just might be the Democrats' best hope of electing another president someday, has a bit of a problem. You see, it would appear the good Senator doesn't practice what he preaches. I know .. what a surprise for a politician! This has long been a problem for those on the Left, with Al Gore being one of the biggest offenders.

At any rate, Obama was giving a speech recently at one of his town hall meetings in which he said that global warming was caused by gas guzzling vehicles. He said people should switch to hybrids, and that "It would save more energy, do more for the environment and create better world security than all the drilling we could do in Alaska." Yeah ... and if we all walked think of how much oil we could save! Anyway ... moving right along here .....

So after the speech, did the good Senator go outside, get into his Toyota Prius and zip off toward home? Uh..no. The media caught him getting into....you guessed it...an SUV. A GMC Envoy, to be exact. Obama even admitted that he liked SUVs. It would seem we have a bit of hypocrisy on our hands. When called out on it, Obama's staff went into spin overdrive...claiming that the Envoy was a Flexible Fuel Vehicle that can run on E85, or ethanol-based fuels. In fact, they say the Senator fills the SUV up with ethanol whenever he can!

But there's a problem with that, too. The GMC Envoy is not E85-ready. Ooops. Sounds like somebody dug the hole just a bit deeper on that one. As the saying goes, don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.

BRITAIN FIGURES IT OUT

Finally...after foiling a terrorist attack that would have killed hundreds of people, the folks running things on the other side of the pond have gotten wise. They get it. The government of Great Britain is working with airports to implement new security protocols. And what exactly are those new rules being put in place going to do?

Will they intensify the strip-searching of little old ladies? Nope. Are they going to foolishly confiscate every passenger's hair gel, nail clippers and anything else that might remotely be used as a weapon? That doesn't appear to be part of the new protocol. No..the plan is to look for people that behave suspiciously, have unusual travel plans or are of a certain religion or ethnicity.

In other words, they're going to start profiling!!!!

Can you imagine that!

A specific group of people is trying to kill innocent British citizens, and now the Brits are actually going to concentrate their preventative efforts on that specific group of people? In another era this would have made perfect sense to everyone ... but this is the era of political correctness!

The British version of the TSA, something called the Department for Transport, has decided that putting people in long lines at the airport for random searches is a waste of time. And they're right, it is. Would the police randomly search people on the street if they had a report that an Arab male had just robbed a bank? No, they would not. Do authorities stop white people and ask for ID when they are in pursuit of a black carjacker? They do not. This isn't racism. It isn't bigotry. It's simply common sense. You receive a threat from members of an identifiable group -- and you concentrate your response on the members of that identifiable group.

It's not racial profiling. It's not religious profiling. It's terrorist profiling. No ... not all Muslims are terrorists. But with only a very few -- and long ago --- isolated incidents, all terrorists are Muslims. Just about every terrorist that has hijacked a plane in the last 30 years has fit one, single description: Arab Muslim. That is the description of the suspect. The terrorists who blew up nightclubs in Bali, the terrorists who wanted to lop off the head of the Canadian prime minister ... Muslims. Every one. Every terrorist that planned to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic last week was an Muslim who, if not from the Middle East, was of Middle East decent. This isn't rocket surgery. So ... get ready for the howls of protest from the Islamic community in Britain. If the Brits stick to their guns on this one perhaps it will evolve into one more reason for Muslims who truly want to live their lives in peace ... to be left alone and to leave alone ... to rebel against those of their religion who have brought this upon them.

BRITISH SKY PLOT MAY HAVE 9/11 CONNECTION

German authorities are investigating a possible link between the captured terrorists of the recent airliner plot and a key figure in the Hamburg cell who worked with Mohammed Atta on the 9/11 attacks. Said Bahaji, a computer expert who helped plan 9/11, may have provided the same assistance to these suspected al-Qaeda terrorists:

German authorities are investigating contacts between a Briton being questioned over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airlines and a key figure in the September 11, 2001, terrorist cell.

Intelligence sources said that, at Britain’s request, they were examining possible links between the suspect and Said Bahaji, the computer expert in the Hamburg cell that planned the suicide hijackings in 2001.

Bahaji shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, and Ramzi Binalshibh, the planner of 9/11. He fled Germany for Pakistan a week before the attacks in New York and Washington and has never been caught.

Bahaji's name came up in the 9/11 Commission report, at least briefly. Bahaji was an odd duck in the Hamburg cell. For one, he was the only German citizen in the group. Bahaji spent five months in the German Army before getting a medical discharge. He had only limited knowledge of Islam despite his Moroccan heritage, but eagerly volunteered for violence.

His assistance to Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh went beyond enthusiasm, however. He gave them access to the Internet for their research, and investigators later found disks and documents showing the Internet surfing done by the terror leaders. While Atta traveled to Afghanistan for training, Bahaji maintained a false front in Germany, covering their absence in order to throw off suspicion.

He has long since fled Germany. Bahaji flew to Pakistan days ahead of the 9/11 attacks, thanks to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's warning to the Hamburg cell that the date of the attack was quickly approaching. He bought his tickets to Karachi and left on September 3rd. American authorities would love to get their hands on Bahaji, and now it looks like the British would also want a crack at him.

The financing of the scheme has also been coming under more scrutiny. According to the Times of London, the Crescent Relief charity may have laundered some of the money that fueled this terror cell. The charity's founding trustee, Abdul Rauf, is the father of Rashid Rauf, whom the Pakistanis now hold in connection to the plot. Another of Rauf's sons, Tayib, was among those arrested last week in Britain. Crescent Relief and Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa raised large amounts of money, much of it in cash, following the earthquake in Kashmir. Now the British would like to know where it went.

This plot looked like an al-Qaeda production from the beginning. If Said Bahaji can be tied to it, that diagnosis looks pretty accurate.

MORE ON THE UK ATTACK PLOTTERS

More is becoming known about the Islamic terrorists that were planning on blowing up several jetliners headed to the United States from Great Britain last week. It turns out many of those involved were Muslim students recruited at British universities. This exposes a well-known weak link in European immigration policy.

You see, Britain, France and the like are places where radical Islamic clerics from terrorist regimes can go set up shop and not be touched. The Euro-weenies, under the guise of political correctness, won't do anything about the hate that these jihadists preach. They take impressionable young Muslims and turn them into terrorists. The same thing is going on at British universities. One of the plotters from last week attended a school where terrorist literature was found.

And it gets worse. Also among those arrested for the plot are mothers who were willing to blow up themselves and their babies in the terrorist attack. The babies would be used as cover for the attacks, since a mother with a baby doesn't look suspicious or threatening. This just goes to show you the psychos that we're dealing with here when it comes to Islamic terrorists. They will kill their own children to take out an infidel or two.

Britain was about to pay dearly for their lax immigration policy that allows so many of these hate-filled Islamic killers into their country. Perhaps now they'll pay a bit more attention to their politically correct ways, before one of these terrorist attacks actually succeeds. But then again .... probably not.

Remember .. any effort to fight Islamic fascists must take a back seat to the requirements of political correctness.

DEARBORN MEN BOUGHT CELL PHONE MICROCHIPS

By Michelle Malkin

Why? It's an "all-American" thing to do. Via the Marietta Times:

Holding up newspaper clippings depicting their clients during their high school football days, defense attorneys of two Michigan men charged with aiding in terrorism called them “All-American kids” who were arrested because of a rush to judgment based on their names and race.

Prosecutors say they are confident the men are linked to a terrorist network and filed additional felony charges Thursday relating to the buying and selling of specific microchips found in only a few types of cell phones.

The two men were arrested in Marietta Tuesday.

Authorities say the phones are being modified by terrorists to make untraceable international calls and also in the production of roadside bombs.

Charged after purchasing several of the phones in Marietta earlier this week were Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of Dearborn, Mich. The two appeared Thursday in Marietta Municipal Court for a bond and arraignment hearing.

The Dearbornistan duo's lawyer bemoans the targeting of the men:

“They are All-American kids that unfortunately in this day and age — since 9/11 — have names that call them into question,” said Rolf Baumgartel, retained counsel for Houssaiky, a Wayne State University student studying to become an elementary school teacher.

It's not their names, Rolf. It's their actions.

This seems key:

Assistant Washington County Prosecutor Susan Vessels said Abulhassan and Houssaiky knew the phones were being used for illegal activity. She said the men were found in possession of a list detailing the specific types of phones to buy, based on the kind of microchips they use.

“Mr. Abulhassan made a statement to officers that he knew what they were doing was wrong and that he knew no one would ever use over 600 phones for legal purposes,” Vessels said. “(He also stated) he did not know for sure, but that he believed the phones and chips were being shipped overseas.”

Who gave them the list? Someone "all-American," too?

I love the fair and balanced headline of the Marietta Times article, by the way. It's: "Racial profiling?" Talk about burying the lede.

***
Previous:

Late-night tracfone shopping sprees
The Dearbornistan duo
Dearbornistan terror arrests:
Flight docs and 600+ tracphones

CALAME: TIMES LIED ABOUT TIMING OF NSA ARTICLE

The New York Times' public editor, Byron Calame, publishes a startling admision from Bill Keller regarding the publication delay of the most explosive story in his short reign as managing editor. Earlier, when Keller told people that the NSA surveillance story got delayed from December 2004 based on requests from the White House, speculation circulated that the story had actually gotten shelved before the presidential election. Now Calame confirms that Keller lied about the publication history of the Lichtblau/Risen effort:

THE NEW YORK TIMES’S Dec. 16 article that disclosed the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping has led to an important public debate about the once-secret program. And the decision to write about the program in the face of White House pressure deserved even more praise than I gave it in a January column, which focused on the paper’s inadequate explanation of why it had “delayed publication for a year.”

The article, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, has been honored with a Pulitzer and other journalistic prizes. But contradictory post-publication comments by Times editors and others about just how long the article was held have left me increasingly concerned about one key question: Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?

In my January column, in which I refused to rely on anonymous sources, I noted that I was left “puzzled” by the election question. But I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December.

In fact, the Keller/Calame interview seems very strange indeed. Keller refused to answer this question in January, and in fact refused to answer any of Calame's questions regarding the timing of the publication. Calame followed up this week, and despite Keller's insistence that the story was now "old news", agreed to sit down with his public editor -- and then confessed he had lied all along.

Left-wing pundits and bloggers have insisted that Keller spiked the story to keep George Bush in office. Keller, however, has a different take on his decision. He insists that the news would have likely helped Bush rather than hurt him, and the public support for this program after its delayed revelation last December supports that analysis. John Kerry and the Democrats had castigated Bush for the lack of visible effort to find and track terrorists, and the program's exposure would have forced Kerry to recant and suddenly argue that Bush had been too enthusiastic about fighting terrorism, a tough pirouette to execute in a grueling presidential campaign.

In the end, the final version of the story got prepared just days before the election, and Keller argues that a release at that point would have been "unfair" to all parties. It took several weeks for all of the political dust to settle once the article did come out. He may have a point, but then two related events took place: he delayed the release for over a year, and then Keller lied about the timing when he published it.

Calame asked Keller why he lied, although Calame didn't quite put it that way. Keller says he used "inelegant" wording in his description, but clearly Keller wanted to keep that information secret. Besides, Keller's job as editor depends on his use of words and the judgement of what and how to communicate. It's clear that Keller wanted to keep people from learning that he had the chance to publish this before the election, and he deliberately did not. Why lie? He depends on the Left for his readership, and his reluctance to publish the article when Bush was vulnerable will likely lose his readership.

Keller has destroyed what's left of his paper's credibility. He lied to everyone about the timing of this publication, baldly and publicly. It also damages the credibility of everyone associated with this story. After all, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau certainly knew that the story was ready before the November 2nd election -- and yet they chose to play along with Keller's lies that the decision to spike it was in December 2004 rather than October and November.

The Paper of Record managed to utterly destroy the trust it still had left with readers across the political spectrum with this story.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And you may want to ask yourself this, as one CQ commenter did -- what else has the Times lied about?