Airport Security? Our Government Is On The Case

Airport Security? Our Government Is On The Case: After 9/11, airport security was a top priority of our government. Surely by now all the kinks have been knocked out right? Absolutely! Now our airport security is just as efficient and well run as other government agencies — like the INS and the post office. Want proof? Columnist John Grogan has seen the quality of our airport security for himself…

“I was sitting in Detroit Metropolitan Airport, waiting for my flight home, when a voice came over the intercom. Because of increased security concerns, it said, agents would be conducting random searches of passengers at the boarding gate.

At that moment, two security agents in snappy blazers stepped into the waiting area and peered around. They chose just one person to work over.

The suspect stood 5 foot even and had the heft of a sparrow. She sported silver hair sensibly cut, a knit sweater, stretch slacks and red suede boots. She was 80 if she was a day. She looked like she might have been Strom Thurmond’s prom date.”

Ah, an 80 year old grandmother — an obvious choice! After all, who’d ever suspect her of being strapped with enough TNT to take down a plane? HA! Our airport security — that’s who!!

“Meanwhile, sitting right next to her were three very large men dressed top to bottom in – this is not a misprint – militia-style camouflage.

Hello? Earth to security? We have a reunion of Timothy McVeigh’s cellmates here, and who do you single out to frisk? Grandma Walton.

Come on — it’s not the people wearing camouflage or even the young Arabs with Taliban style beards, weird bulges under their coats, and autographed pics of Osama Bin Laden they’re carrying on the plane we have to watch out for, it’s your Grandma. But Grogan doesn’t get it — just read this line from his editorial…

“Call me a raving profiler, but I’m willing to make the bigoted assumption that anyone born prior to the Coolidge administration is probably not going to hijack my flight. And if she did, I know I could disable her simply by sneezing on her.

Sure Grogan, that old woman may seem harmless — until that 80 year old granny has cut your throat ear to ear with a box-cutter while she’s screaming for Jihad and trying to get her sneakers to explode.

All right, enough fun and games. When are we going to fix airport security? I do realize that the habitual incompetence of the government makes them ill suited to handle airport security but since they’ve decided to take on the responsibility, they need to get the job done. We’re more than a year out from 9/11 so as far as I’m concerned, the time for excuses has long since passed.

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