CULTURE HAS CONSEQUENCES: Mona Charen on the ultimate consequences of America's fetish for "nonjudgementalism" and why it hamstrung the FBI when it discovered that numerous young Arab males were taking flight training lessons at American schools:

When your greatest source of pride is nonjudgmentalism, you will pretend not to see even what is patently obvious. In reality, it was perfectly legitimate and understandable for Americans to suppose, however briefly, that the perpetrators of Oklahoma City were Arab terrorists. Arabs had bombed the World Trade Center (the first time) only months before, and had attacked American officials in the Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt. They had brought down a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, and killed 241 American soldiers in their barracks in Lebanon. Truck bombs were a Middle East specialty.

Culture has consequences. Before 9-11, our culture had elevated nonjudgmentalism to the level of civic religion. We've been told that "everything has changed" since then.

But not everything has. Some continue to worship the old civic religion. The Department of Transportation under Norm Mineta (the lone Democrat in the Bush Cabinet) has declined to examine young Arab-looking males more carefully than other airline passengers and has refused to permit pilots to carry guns. Both decisions defy common sense.