What Political Correctness Has Done
March 2, 2005
Michael Touhey was the United Airlines gate agent in Portland, Maine on September 11, 2001.
He allowed Mohammad Atta to get on the plane that was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center later that morning.
He says he has played that day over and over in his mind.
Here is what he says happened at 5:43 a.m. that fateful day.
Listen to what political correctness has done to us: Two men wearing sport coats and ties approached his counter with just 17 minutes to spare before their flight to Boston.
He thought the pair were unusual.
First, they each held a $2,500 first-class, one-way ticket to Los Angeles (via Boston). 'You don't see many of those,' he says.
"The second reason is not so easy to explain. It was just the look on the one man's face, his eyes," Tuohey recently told an interviewer for the Philadelphia Daily News.
"He looked like a walking corpse. The man was Mohamed Atta. The one guy was looking at me. It sent a chill through me. Something in my stomach churned. And subconsciously I said to myself, 'If they don't look like Arab terrorists, nothing does."
Tuohey then remembered he had checked in thousands of Arab travelers and never thought this before.
And with that, he handed the men their bording passes.
I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. Watch his television show, After Hours with Cal Thomas, on the Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.
Originally published March 02, 2005.
