I love it when I see some 70-year-old grandmother gets embarrassed half to death while the airports search her, including patting down her bosom.

For fifty years that woman, liberal or conservative, has been crying over the poor little Indians, blubbering about racism and proving she’s not a racist, and now she’s getting a chance to prove it and pay just a little of the dues she owes.

Are we going to stop strip-searching white grandmothers and thereby offend Mohammed Um-Baba? No way, Mohammed is just as unsuspicious as grandma.

Are we going to stop black teenagers because half of black teenagers are in jail or on probation? No way, everyone is assumed innocent until he is proven guilty, and there is no limit to the amount of time the police have to waste on checking everybody equally.

So if granny gets her head bashed in while the police are off stopping other grandmas to balance their number of checks on young blacks, it is not just what granny allowed to happen, it’s what she BEGGED for, year after year, decade after decade.

The one member of the Cabinet Bush is not even thinking of removing is Normal Mineta. His Japanese family got interned sixty years ago and he’s still got the grudge going. America is going to pay. He is the one who ordered the strip-searching of grandma and he is going to keep on ordering it.

Well, I agree with him. This is what grandma agreed to over and over and over. She didn’t object much when white kids had to wait in the freezing winter mornings to be bused into ghettoes. Well, she said a few things, but she didn’t want to make too much noise.

She was infinitely more worried about being accused of racism than about any kids.

So grandma gets strip-searched and mugged.

It suits Mineta. And it suits me.

And if a plane gets blown out of the sky by Mohammed, who got on the plane while they were humiliating grandma, it’s not just what the passengers LET happen. It is what they have BEGGED for, year after year, decade after decade.

It suits Mineta.

And it suits me.