No Passport? No Problem

Debbie Schlussel reports:

The latest is the allegation that Abdulmutallab was able to get on the flight even though he had NO PASSPORT! (I can’t even go to Canada for a few hours, without a passport.) Given that, I have to laugh at the diaries that the Wall Street Journal published from the Shoe Bomber Abdel Rahim a/k/a Richard Reid. Reid detailed the tremendous trouble he went through in 2001, to mask his passport prior to boarding a U.S.-bound flight from Amsterdam and trying to bomb it. Reid didn’t want his British passport to reflect that he’s traveled to the Middle East. So he tore out those pages, threw his passport in his jeans pocket and put it in a laundry washing machine repeatedly. Then, when he went to get a replacement passport and told officials his story about “accidentally” throwing his passport in the laundry, suspicious officials issued him a new passport anyway.

Well, apparently, security was stricter back then. Because, eight years later, Abdulmutallab didn’t even need a passport. Passengers on Flight 253 say they watched a “sharp dressed man” (cue the ZZ Top song) convince authorities to let Abdul Mutallab on the flight WITHOUT a passport. You let a dude from a Muslim country and no luggage on a U.S.-bound plane with NO passport?! Hellooooo . . .?:

It's like the aftermath of Fort Hood all over again as absurdity piles upon absurdity. At least this time there are no dead infidels and the only casualty is air travel, which just became even more inconvenient and unpleasant because of Mr. Undies Flambée.