Dave teaches us about credibility.

A point needs to be made, again, about David Reinhard’s timeliness. For a Sunday opinion column, Dave had a number of events from the past week to write about. For example, he could’ve spun the success of the Democrats in the first post-Plamegate election on Tuesday, or he could’ve written about how the week’s deadly explosions in Jordan necessitated continued support for Dubya’s unending “war on terror.” Instead, what we are treated to is this column, detailing an event that happened nearly eight months ago!
In short- boy misses flight from LA to Portland; boy’s name matches one on a terror “watch list”; boy is able to catch later flight to Portland; boy calls father before catching the Portland- bound flight; father contacts the media; the media awaits boy upon arrival at PDX. Oh, and the boy’s father was Shahriar Ahmed, a prominent leader in Portland’s Muslim community.
Reinhard attempts to make a case that Shahriar Ahmed, a visible leader in the Muslim community- a leader that works as a bridge between Portland Muslims and the FBI- lost credibility as he trumped up “bogus” charges over the incident at LAX. However, there was an incident at LAX: the name of Shahriar’s son- Shehab- matched a name on the terror watch list.
Reinhard writes: “And here's what did not happen: Ahmed wasn't on the watch list or put on it. He was not told he couldn't fly home; he was allowed on the flight he wanted to be on after providing ID. He wasn't yanked out line or taken to a special room for questioning by government agents. In fact, government agents -- TSA personnel -- were not involved in any of this. “ Nowhere prior to this paragraph did Dave state that either Shahriar or his son make claims that such events had happened, so this paragraph appears to be disingenuous. What was stated was that Shehab’s name matched one on the terror list - the UCLA student is quoted as saying "To know that the government puts me on the list as bin Laden and whatnot . . . that's scary”- but he was allowed to fly home. (False matches have happened before, remember. Somehow Senator Ted Kennedy’s name had brought positive matches as well.)
Does Shahriar’s reaction deserve the Reinhard treatment many months later? Would not any father react in a similar manner- a point that Reinhard admits to, albeit at the end of his column, after lambasting Shahriar for his actions repeatedly throughout?
Most fathers would not have connections with the local media, but due to Shahriar’s standing, he did. In a decision fueled by irrational emotion, he used them. Shahriar is not at fault for the local media’s inability to follow-up a story. An opportunity was missed by Reinhard to rant on the death of investigative journalism here, as a simple phone call to LAX would have given reporters at channel 6 and 8 the conclusion that there was no incident to report and that they were responding to a hysterical father. However, if reporters fail to follow up any leads in today’s non-stop media barrage, then they fail to do their jobs.
But transferring fault onto Portland’s listless local media would detract from Reinhard’s goal of attempting to besmirch Shahriar Ahemd’s credibility as a leader in Portland’s Muslim community. And “credibility” is the issue here, as Reinhard attempts to make the case that Shahriar has lost his. Reinhard’s conception of credibility, and how it is lost, is- to me- a funny thing. As I wrote in an earlier post, “The lies by Bush, Cheney, Rove & Libby have led to the deaths of over 2,000 of our bravest American soldiers. When that happens, you lose credibility.” Reinhard has used the op-ed page of The Oregonian as the means to make his case apologizing for the actions of the Bush administration over the past five years. Dubya has had many opportunities to apologize for the mistakes he has made, but his continued arrogant insistence that he has done nothing wrong has led to an increase in the number of Americans who have lost credibility in our country’s leader.
Reinhard writes that Shahriar apologized for his emotional over-reaction to his son- albeit sheepishly, months later, and only when confronted by Dave. The reason why Shahriar didn’t apologize sooner? He wanted the issue to go away. Is that why we haven’t heard an apology from Dubya for dragging us into an ill-conceived and poorly-executed war in Iraq? Is Dubya waiting for the Iraq issue to eventually go away as well?
Reinhard attempts to give Oregonian readers a lesson on credibility: if you apologize, you aint got none. But if you don’t, then you have credibility to spare. Sorry, Dave, I aint buying it….