Pop Quiz

[sheelz]

Truth or Consequences

OK, boys and girls, it's time for a pop quiz. Professional provocateur David Horowitz recently proclaimed that "there are 50,000 professors...who are anti-American, they're radicals, they identify with the terrorists, they think of them as freedom fighters. It's a huge danger for the country." If true, that would mean that of the approximately 400,000 tenured or tenure-track professors in the United States, about one in every eight is a threat to national security. And here we were worrying about terrorists sneaking in through Dubai Ports World! They're already among us, speaking our language, pretending to be neighbors, passing themselves off as citizens! Right here in River City!

Horowitz recommends that students use hidden recording devices to tape their teachers. He praises the high school student who secretly recorded Jay Bennish, his social studies teacher, comparing President Bush's foreign policies to those of Hitler.

But as a true patriot, I think we should expand the search for infidels. If it's that bad in the professoriate, why stop at schools? The percentage could be even higher in other professions. What, pray tell, are we doing about Volvo salesmen or Birkenstock wearers or chardonnay vintners? Who's recording them? And what of those who own French poodles?

So in the interest of protecting ourselves from those who would mock the tenets of our freedom, I have devised a new SAT (Save America from Treachery) test, whose scores should be considered before granting anyone the blessing of our soon-to-be-issued National Identity-Chip Embed, or NICHE for short. All you have to do is figure out who's speaking truth to power versus who's the terrorist. First prize: three-day getaway weekend in Baghdad! Fail, and go to jail.

Take the quiz here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060403/williams