It’s not just conservatives and libertarians crying foul over a recent Transportation Security Administration pat-down act on a 95-year old cancer patient, Lena Reppert, who was forced to remove her adult diaper as part of security check. Even some on the left are taking notice as well.
On his Monday “Countdown” show on Current, host Keith Olbermann blasted TSA head John Pistole during his “Worst Persons in the World” segment, giving him the highest honor as the “Worst Person in the World.” He recounted his interpretation of that incident.
“Our winner John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration – you have heard this story, too, right? Jean Weber is taking her 95-year-old mother Lena Reppert from an airport in northern Florida to Michigan for cancer treatment and special care,” Olbermann said. “She is in a wheelchair and after the TSA agents pat Ms. Reppert down and insist her daughter remove her mother’s adult diaper, which was used, the mother is stoic and cooperative. The daughter bursts into tears. So now the TSA agents have to frisk her, too, because her conduct is now deemed unusual. The daughter misses the flight and her 95-year-old mother has to travel alone.”
Olbermann then relayed the TSA response to his viewers, which he considered incorrect and suggested the TSA should have apologized.
“The TSA’s response? ‘We’re terribly sorry we went too far?’” Olbermann said. “Uh-uh. ‘In no instance would our officers ask a passenger to remove an adult diaper.’ The daughter says that’s a lie. The TSA still is refusing to acknowledge it did anything wrong. ‘While every person and item must be screened before entering the secured boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner. We have reviewed the circumstances involved in the screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.”
The remedy: Olbermann said it might be time for the TSA chief to go.
“Translation: Screw you, public, we can do whatever the hell we want,” Olbermann said. “That attitude has only been growing in the last year since the feel-ups began at the airports and if it’s not going to change – the agency is really going to defend abusing 95-year-old leukemia patients on the incomprehensible premise that they might be suicide bombers, then this John Pistole, head of the TSA – he needs to be fired and we need to get a human being in there to do his job. John Pistole, TSA chief: Frisk this buddy – today’s worst person in the world!”