IN WHICH I PAT MYSELF ON THE BACK

Yes, the Bushies are even more incompetent than you thought:

60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.’

How bad is it? Well, the list includes

Saddam Hussein, who is under arrest, Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, and Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. It also includes the names of 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers.

But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list.

The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year.

The name of David Belfield who now goes by Dawud Sallahuddin, is not on the list, even though he assassinated someone in Washington, D.C., for former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini....

And now for the patting-myself-on-the-back part: here's something I guessed months ago.

Even if the list is made more accurate, it won't help thousands of innocent travelers who share a common name on the list and who get detained, sometimes for hours, when they attempt to fly.

Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly.

Robert Johnson? Keep reading.

I noticed in 2004 Senator Edward Kennedy wound up on the list (temporarily). Then, more recently, Bush's Brain coauthor James Moore said he was on the list. After that it was -- yes -- Dr. Robert Johnson, a two-time Democratic congressional candidate from upstate New York. And then Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, whose real name is James Richard Kelly.

The first three seemed like people who might have been placed on the list by smirky Young Republicans working for the administration -- but why the Donnie Darko guy?

Last May, when Kelly's story hit, I wrote:

James Kelly, Robert Johnson, James Moore, Edward Kennedy. I see a possible explanation here: The people running this program are too freaking stupid to tell people apart who have very common names.

And that turns out to be right.

Your tax dollars at work.

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This right-wing genius says,

There's a reason Evo Morales is on the list, he's a terrorist. The Left won't think so because his attacks are on capitalism and they just love their fellow Marxists.

Dude, are you arguing that the president of Bolivia might actually blow up a plane himself, or commit a similar act of, y'know, literal terrorism? If you aren't, you really are an idiot.