Hanlon's Razor
A NJ Moonbat writes:
Murphy may believe he’s entitled to an exemption from airport security procedures and lost baggage, but his failure to avoid both hassles hardly proves he was a target of governmental harassment. What went wrong can be traced to an airline clerk who apparently hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about and errant baggage handling. Forget a new corollary to Murphy’s Law and remember Hanlon's Razor.
Murphy had no trouble getting a boarding pass for his return tip home and his ‘lost’ luggage was delivered to his home the same night he landed. The professor has turned inconveniences, not unique to Bush critics, into a ridiculous conspiracy theory. He is also quickly moving into tinfoil hat territory. Murphy thinks he might have been taken off the Terrorist Watch list by the NSA.
Murphy’s Law tells us that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And the recent situation involving Professor Walter Murphy, emeritus professor of Princeton University, gives us its new corrollary (sic):“When something goes wrong and the blame can traced to the Bush administration, legions of right-wing pundits and bloggers will leap to assure everyone that nothing bad actually happened and anyone who says otherwise is a shrill conspiracy nut.Walter Murphy did not find himself on the Terrorist Watch list. He found himself selected for a heightened airport security check on one leg of his trip. Had he actually been on the Terrorist Watch list he would have bee prevented from flying. He was not.
So if a wildly respected legal scholar like Walter Murphy finds himself on the Terrorist Watch list, I’m perfectly prepared to believe it may not have been because Murphy has thoroughly criticized the Bush administration for its habit of wiping its feet on the Constitution. It’s just another one of those funny coincidences. That’s what the Wall Street Journal and a gnat-swarm of winger bloggers and concern trolls would have us believe, anyway.
Murphy may believe he’s entitled to an exemption from airport security procedures and lost baggage, but his failure to avoid both hassles hardly proves he was a target of governmental harassment. What went wrong can be traced to an airline clerk who apparently hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about and errant baggage handling. Forget a new corollary to Murphy’s Law and remember Hanlon's Razor.
Murphy had no trouble getting a boarding pass for his return tip home and his ‘lost’ luggage was delivered to his home the same night he landed. The professor has turned inconveniences, not unique to Bush critics, into a ridiculous conspiracy theory. He is also quickly moving into tinfoil hat territory. Murphy thinks he might have been taken off the Terrorist Watch list by the NSA.
I flew back without having trouble getting a boarding pass. But when I was in Princeton, I had breakfast with former student -- a Republican congressman, and called a number of friends in my academic life, and the NSA monitors a lot of phone calls, especially cell phone calls, so I tried to use the words that might trip their computers like starting calls by saying, "I'm on the terrorist watch list" and "I've been criticizing George Bush" and if indeed these things are monitored, maybe they heard this, I don't know.Two more moonbats exposed.
Labels: Princeton, Steven Hart, Terrorism, Walter Murphy
