Deliver Me From Lileks

I really hope that I never write anything that deserves being fisked by James Lileks. He goes on about the weather for a while, and then digs into an editorial by FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley, Whistleblower, painfully hard. Rowley writes at length about how un-free we Americans are in this post-9/11 world due to racism and unjustified scrutiny of Arabs traveling in America. She's a really awful writer -- completely vacuous -- but probably quite regular now that Mr. Lileks has ripped her a new one.

You should go read it all, but here's my favorite part:

But why do they hate us? She knows:

Although it must be recognized that the origin of this problem was in the horror of the violent attacks themselves and that certain government leaders, such as FBI Director Robert Mueller, have undertaken efforts to reach out to affected Arab groups,

(deep breath; one only wonders how that read before it was edited)

. . . the social scientists point to other government actions following 9/11 (including the government’s roundup and detention of illegal immigrants, the special registration requirements that single out students and visitors from Muslim nations, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) as sending ‘social signals’ that are worsening these biases.

To repeat: an FBI Special Agent is warning us that requiring Saudi students to register sends a “social signal” that enflames the biases that were intensified because . . . because . . . because . . .

Because a bunch of Saudis on student visas came here, killed three thousand Americans?

To repeat: an FBI Special Agent is warning us that arresting and detaining illegal immigrants sends a bias-worsening message to Americans.

To repeat: an FBI Special Agent tells us that the Afghan and Iraqi campaign send these horrid “social signals.”

To repeat: an FBI Special Agent.