Did You Know...

Department of Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, who was evacuated as a young boy from San Jose, Calif., to a relocation center in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, has been the Bush Administration’s most ardent foe of racial profiling. Read my new New York Post column on him here.

Update: 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman agrees with me. According to Rod Dreher, Lehman told the Dallas Morning News editorial board that “The Secretary of Transportation is obsessive about [racial profiling]. He will not relent on it.”

When one of Dreher’s colleagues suggested that “perhaps as a Japanese-American who was interned as a child during WW2,” Mineta has “a special perspective on how badly things can go when profiling goes too far,” Lehman responded, “Look, that’s his problem, not my problem….I’ve got problems too, and I don’t take them out on [public policy].”

Update II: Lucianne Goldberg’s readers agree with me too.

Update III: An American Airlines pilots writes:

Right on!!! As a pilot for American Airlines I vividly remember how I felt when I saw the 60 minutes segment with Secretary Mineta. I recall I shouted obscenities at the TV and almost threw the remote through it. I told anybody that would listen that if I were the President I would have fired Mr. Mineta on Monday morning and done it in the Rose Garden. “We need a person responsible for the transportation systems of this country who understands the realities of today’s dangerous world. Mr. Mineta is not that man.”

Furthermore Michelle, myself and my fellow pilots were furious when our airline was strongarmed into paying a large fine for protecting our passengers and ourselves. I guess bruised egos and hurt feelings outweigh defense of the aircraft at all costs.