From the paranoia front

So that article about the Middle Eastern musicians acting suspiciously on a plane? Turns out it was correct: a guy named Nour Mehana and his traveling band did play at a casino in southern California, the National Review reports.

Was there any reason to be worried? Doesn't sound like it:

I talked to James Cullen of Anthem Artists who confirms that Nour Mehana's large band did arrive on Northwest Flight 327. Some of them came in from Detroit, and some from Lebanon. Cullen says they never said anything about a disturbance on the flight to him, even though "I stayed in the same hotel, they were nice, they stayed right above me." He said that they were fine musicians, put on a great show, and he would work with them again in the future.

We'll never know unless someone else on that flight confirms or denies Jacobsen's original account.

But never fear, the author of the NRO article takes full advantage of his sleuthing abilities to work in some good ol' fashioned straw men:

Liberals will likely decry the suspicion and interrogation the musicians faced on Flight 327. And the principled Right will regret that that was necessary. If the band's English wasn't very good they might not have understood the instructions. But a polite word and some helpful gestures earlier on, rather than a guilty PC silence, might have saved them some embarrassment.

I bring up this small dose of idiocy only because the author, Mr. Clinton W. Taylor, is a political science PhD. candidate at Stanford, one of our nations's most esteemed universities. Surely America will remain at the forefront of a new age of realpolitik with such brilliant analysis as this oozing from our ivory towers.

Here's a question: When was the last time you heard anyone criticize something because it was not politically correct? Well, except for that one time — irony of ironies — when Bill Maher got fired.

Via Kevin Drum.