NPR's Garrison Keillor Mocks War on Terror As Excuse for DHS Tyranny Against Doctors

If you’re the kind of liberal elitist who makes untold millions as a precious literary mind on National Public Radio (complete with relentless program-related merchandising), then you are the kind of person who finds the "War on Terror" to be nothing more than the comedic Gift That Keeps on Giving. I’m talking about Garrison Keillor of "A Prairie Home Companion," who takes up space on the left-wing site Salon.com on Thursday with a "comedy" piece headlined: "His stethoscope is loaded: The war on terror must be pursued wherever it leads and right now it points toward people in green scrubs." The recent finding that some terrorist suspects are doctors will no doubt lead to dramatic and tyrannical overreaching by "Secretary Shirtsoff" and the Department of Homeland Security, Keillor suggests:

It may seem craven to say so, but a person really had to wonder at the inability of trained medical personnel to hook wire A to battery B to alarm clock C and detonate a car loaded with gasoline and nails in London. And then having to resort to the rather amateurish alternative of crashing a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport terminal -- the suicide bomb alumni association must be shaking their heads.

Nonetheless, the fiasco in London is bound to bring new directives from the Department of Homeland Security forbidding doctors and nurses from operating motor vehicles. It only makes sense. Where there is smoke, there is fire. The war on terror must be pursued wherever it leads and right now it points toward people with stethoscopes.

It is the DHS that requires us to remove our shoes at the airport and put our toothpaste in a little plastic bag, all in homage to previous unsuccessful terrorists, and so a new rule from Secretary Shirtsoff seems inevitable. What evil lurks in the hearts of men, the secretary knows. Doctors have been shown to constitute a security threat: therefore they must not be allowed to drive cars or have backpacks or briefcases, which can conceal bombs. They should carry their possessions in clear plastic bags and they should go barefoot at all times. When it comes to security, there can be no shortcuts, no half-measures.

Perhaps these rules should apply only to medical personnel from the Middle East, or to all swarthy doctors, or those who have fez marks on their foreheads or who set off the fig detector, but that would require a lot of on-site decisions by motor vehicle bureaus and security personnel -- a blanket rule is easier to enforce. All docs take walks. After all, the TSA folks at the airport don't let you squeeze out a little Ipana on your finger and prove that it's only toothpaste and not nitroglycerine -- there just isn't time for that monkey business.

It goes on and on from there. (It's not the first time he's mocked terror fighting.) Apparently, in Liberal Land, the opponent is always waging Perpetual War on some nonexistent threat under the bed, while the earnest public-radio types are fighting the real enemy, like the makers of incandescent light bulbs and people who cook with trans fats.