Right.
Conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin have dutifully jumped on this fear porn, repeating tales of suspicious “ice packs” and wired cheese to an audience so addicted to fear that if they don’t get their regular fix they start sniping at President Bush for insufficient national security mentions in the SOTU.
Olbermann had Will Bunch of the blog Attytood on to spill the beans about these TSA jokes swallowed whole by CNN. (Speaking of jokes, am I the only one amused that CNN’s security analyst is a guy named Clark Kent Ervin?) Velveeta cheese packed next to a DVD charger, not substitute bomb parts. Freezer packs leaking the usual blue gel in luggage owned by an American woman in her 60’s -- not, as it happens, “ice bags, wrapped or configured to mimic bomb components,” as CNN reported. As Bunch wrote, the problem is not that the TSA investigated this stuff--that’s their job, after all--but that they needlessly frightened Americans about it afterwards:
In the end, TSA inspectors did the right thing in thoroughly checking the suspicious baggage, but the aftermath raises a lot of questions. Why did TSA officials put such blatantly incorrect information into their memo and send it out across America. And more importantly, who decided to leak this memo to NBC News, knowing that it would become such a big national story.
Frankly I’m surprised the American people keep buying this bullshit. Time will come when they stop, to our detriment. Crying wolf isn’t good for anyone’s security.
The Administration isn’t stupid, they know this. I can only think that they either don’t care, or care more about keeping the Republican Party in power than protecting the country.
