Woman With Al Qaeda Note, Vaseline, and Screwdriver Causes Terrorist Incident
Of course, the wingnutosphere was right on this latest example of Islamofacism … which was soon downgraded to merely a case of a nutty, hysterical, claustrophobic woman who caused a distrubance on a plane. (Note: the woman in question was not, as previously reported, Annie Jacobsen.)
Here’s part of the latest A.P. story:
Two fighter jets were scrambled Wednesday to escort a London-to-Washington flight to an emergency landing in Boston after a passenger became so agitated she needed to be restrained, authorities said.
The federal official for Boston’s Logan International Airport said there was no indication of terrorism and denied reports that the passenger aboard United Flight 923 had a screw driver and a note referring to al-Qaida.
[...]
An airport spokesman, Phil Orlandella, previously confirmed broadcast reports that the woman was carrying Vaseline, a screw driver, matches and a note referring to al-Qaida, but later backed off the statement. Naccara said it was not true.
“I don’t know what she had on board with her, but we have been told she did not have a screw driver, she did not have any liquids such as Vaseline, and any notebook she may have had, it did not contain an al-Qaida reference,” Naccara said. He said he had no information about matches.
(She apparently did have matches, as well as hand cream, but neither item was prohibited.)
And once the updated info came out, did the Wingnutosphere emit a collective “Ooops! Sorry, my bad”?
Are you kidding?
Here’s the response from Mary Katharine Ham, who was the designated Chicken Little at Michelle Malkin’s site today:
London-to-D.C. Flight Diverted for Unruly Passenger With ‘Note Referencing Al Qaeda’ (Update: Reports of Note Denied)
(Update: I’ve got a deadline on another project,
How convenient!
so I may not be able to follow closely for a bit, here, but Hot Air and Ace have got it in hand.
Ace:
Now comes the lecturing and hectoring about “overreactions” and “anti-Muslim backlash.”
Root causes, baby. We wouldn’t overreact if you weren’t always trying to murder us.
You must understand the non-Islamic point of view.
Which is, basically: Stop trying to kill us.
Shorter Ace: But Mom, he started it!
Now, back to MKat:
We have lost the luxury of leaving terrorism out of a story like this until the full, confirmed, two-sourced, second-day story comes out.
Why, pray tell?
Why? Because if a claustrophobic woman is a diversionary tactic and the pilot doesn’t land the plane, the plane could come down in a much more unpleasant way.
Right, but why do you, a blogger, not have the luxury of waiting until the confirmed story comes out before bringing terrorism into it?
And, if the pilot and security officials are treating it as such, ain’t nothing wrong with the press telling the public.
So, MKat’s position is that, as a blogger, she is REQUIRED to shoot them all and let God sort them out.
And that story about the boy who cried wolf? Just a bit of liberal naysaying, so pay it no mind.
But the best reactions to the updated story come from AllahPundit and his readers. Take it away, AlPun:
and his readers. Take it away, AlPun:
Fox just said the woman had a note referencing Al Qaeda, along with “vaseline,” matches, and a screwdriver.
Fox says an undersecretary at TSA is denying that the woman had any notes or items on her, which puts us back at claustrophobia. Very strange to have two competing storylines like this.
Which storyline you believe depends upon your ideology, of course. Lefties will accuse the feds of making up the stuff about the note and vaseline in order to spread panic. Righties will accuse the feds of making up the stuff about claustrophobia in order not to spread panic.
Kids, allow me the first to tell you that you don’t have to believe either of AlPun’s storylines. You are perfectly free to assume that the feds just got garbled information, and the press ran with it because terror on planes sells papers (and movie tickets — we could call the screenplay based on this incident “Lube on a Plane”), and that nobody consciously made up anything.
But as for “bdfaith,” he has made his choice re: worldviews:
It’s disheartening to realize our governments quite willing to lie to us to avert panic and not stir up any more anymosity toward the poor, poor mistreated Muslims.
Yes, our very own government even went so far as to claim that the unruly passenger was a 59-year-old, white woman from Vermont, instead of a young, Arabic male, like we all know that it must have been.
Damn that George Bush and his government’s Islamo-coddling! I guess it’s time to join a militia group.