Im sure youve heard about the Sudanese Muslim immigrant kid in Texas who was arrested for bringing his home made electronic clock to school where Islamophobes worried that it was a time bomb beeping in his backpack. The President bestirred himself from his narcissistic reveries to note that the northeast African looked a lot like him at that age and invited him to the White House, much to the satisfaction of Salon readers.
But a reader points out that the kids dad is a publicity hound who routinely returns to Sudan to run for President and engages in other PR stunts like debating the Rev. Terry Jones over the holiness of the Koran. From the Dallas News:
He just wants to invent good things for mankind, said Ahmeds father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns there to run for president. But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.
Mohamed is familiar with anti-Islamic politics. He once made national headlines for debating a Florida pastor who burned a Quran.
After the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and the D.C. bomb squad finish examining it, it will be allowed into the White House where Obama will say, "See? It's harmless".
No different than the elites with their armed bodyguards saying the rest of us don't need guns.
So now what? Does this mean other kids will be allowed to bring their electronics projects to school in briefcases? Or just Muslim students?
The problem is that the American authorities were brain-dead stupid.
Perhaps it was a provocative act by the kid and his father, but once the thing was shown, looked at, and seen for what it was, the answer was to send the kid home with it at days end and have a conference with the parents telling them not to do it again.
Where things went berserk, to the embarrassment of officialdom, was when no common sense was applied and the kid was put in handcuffs and booked into jail.
THAT was where the authorities stepped in a pile of shit and set up the media fiasco.
If the authorities behave stupidly, they're end up being smacked down.
You notice that when cases like these erupt, the schools or other government organization always tries to stand its ground, but usually finds it cannot, and then never does it again.
Applying common sense from the start is the better way.