Searching the Cleavers

We constantly hear about policy that forbids profiling in airports. It's one thing to read about it; it's another to talk to someone who has seen this ridiculous policy first-hand.

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine who travels with his family rather frequently. He and his wife are both fair-skinned, and they have twin two-year-old boys whose complexions would make the ivory girls from the old Ivory Soap ads jealous. In short, they look no more like terrorists than Ward, June, Wally, and Beaver Cleaver.

My friend tells me, however, that he and his wife have been stopped for an extra search, including a thorough search of the boys' bags, while single Arab men have been allowed to pass virtually unsearched, simply because their numbers didn't happen to be the numbers selected for an extra search.

When families who look like the Cleaver family start blowing up buildings and airplanes, this will be a good policy. Until then, it's just stupid.