Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Flying Imams

By now, I am sure every NRO reader knows the story of the six imams removed from a US Airways Minneapolis-Phoenix flight Monday evening. If not, click here and here for the main details, concisely summarized on the PowerLine blog. Suffice it to say that there were plenty of good reasons for the passengers to feel nervous - and even a cursory background check on the most vociferous of the imams discloses some disquieting connections to extremist organizations and Hamas front groups.

The main thing for present purposes to note on the PowerLine posts, however, is the time. The first went up at 6:51 am on Tuesday morning; the second at 2:56 pm on Tuesday afternoon.

OK - so I'm on the elliptical machine at the gym at 8 pm on Tuesday night. CNN offers a lengthy report of the incident and then a three-person discussion of the incident. None of the details gathered by PowerLine 14 hours before are even mentioned! A few hints are dropped that some say the passengers may not have been acting wholly irrationally - and that's it.

This is a news organization? It all reminds me of a lethal line of P.J. O'Rourke's: "Just as some things are too strange for fiction, others are too true for journalism."

11/21 09:59 PM