Bennie Thompson Warns Against Terrorist Threat From Swedish Grandmother

Y’all Politics has linked to a story in The Hill where Second District Rep. Bennie Thompson, who serves as Homeland Security Chairman in the House, announced his opposition to any profiling among airplane passengers. Talking Points Memo also has more from the Congressman.

Here is what Thompson said:

“Aggressive profiling should not target any one particular group. I live in a part of the country where white supremacists happen to be terrorists. If we’re going to look at bad people, let’s look at all bad people and not target a specific group of people.

This Swedish grandmother could just as well be a part of a terrorist plot as anyone else. So I think we have to be very careful when we try to target people.

Again, when I tell you that I’m from a part of the country where African Americans were targeted by its government, that’s a real issue for me, so I want us to do it the right way. If we’re going to target bad people, if we’re going to target terrorists, then let’s do all of them. And not say well we’re only gonna do people who look like this. That’s not the professional way to do it.”

In the wake of the attempted plane bombing on Christmas day, many have said we need to move away from political correctness and toward racial profiling. This includes the Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.

Here is part of what he said:

“Some people call it profiling, but I call it common-sense screening, and that’s what we need to do. When the FBI went after the mafia, they investigated Italian groups. When they investigated the IRA, they went to Irish bars. If you’re looking for the Ku Klux Klan, you don’t go to Harlem. When you know that nearly 100 percent of the terrorists coming after us are Muslims, you need to put aside political correctness and focus on young males from Middle Eastern countries. Israel does it and it makes sense. Otherwise, we’re wasting time by grilling the Scandinavian grandmother. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are good people, but we have to be frank. The terrorists are Muslims. We need the president to come out and admit that we’re at war with Islamic terrorism.”