Ted Kennedy on the Homeland Security no-fly list?

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard Thursday morning from one of its own about some of the problems with airline "no fly" watch lists.

Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy says he had a close encounter with the lists when trying to take the US Airways shuttle out of Washington to Boston.

The ticket agent would not let him on the plane because Kennedy's name was on the no-fly list -- in error. After a flurry of phone calls, Kennedy was able to fly home, but then the same thing happened coming back to Washington.

Kennedy says it took three calls to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to get his name stricken from the list. The process took several weeks, in all.

The senator's complaints are not the first concerns raised about the system, which is supposed to keep suspected terrorists off flights but, critics say, also has been used to discourage left-wing activists from traveling....

--CBS

Was this really an error? Call me paranoid, but I have my doubts.

Remember when we discovered that the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq was staffed not with people who knew the first thing about nation-building, but rather by GOP zealots barely out of college? I think that's what we're dealing with here. I think some pink-cheeked 26-year-old underling at Homeland Security with a 10 OUT OF 10 TERRORISTS AGREE: ANYBODY BUT BUSH coffee mug on his desk and a BOYCOTT FRANCE bumper sticker on his car thought it would be "fuckin' hilarious" to put Kennedy on the list -- because, after all, nothing is funnier to a right-winger than Ted Kennedy.

Just a hunch.