Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan recounts a travel nightmare of a Nordic visitor and bewails "Cheney's America" He is followed by fellow  Atlantic blogger Matt Yglesias who piles on with more tut-tutting about our overreaching federal officials.

Shameful -- one might well ask, Is This America?  And, my bad, that is exactly what the report citing the first group of incidents was titled; it was released in Oct 2000 and highlighted INS abuses that occurred, presumably, in eerie anticipation of Dick Cheney's America.

The Iranian scholars were humiliated in Dec 1999, perhaps in anticipation of the Florida recount.

And the moderate Jordanian was pre-emptively punished in May 2000.

Well.  I have no doubt that once a Democrat reclaims the White House Mr. Yglesias will remember that sometimes bad things happen even if Bush is not to blame.  And let's give a nod to the Praire Weatherman for this:

So you thought it was only smallish, darkish, non-Christianish people that real Americans (you know, Americans like Bush and Cheney) have trouble with?

Good point -- Bush has introduced some welcome diversity here, since it appears from these non-random examples that the Clinton era was not particularly welcoming to non-whites.