Transportation Secretary Mineta to Resign

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, the only Democrat in President Bush’s cabinet, will resign July 7th apparently not due to any dissatisfaction with his performance. He will be 75 in November.

Secretary Mineta served as Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration, represented Silicon Valley in the U.S. House of Representatives for over 20 years, and was mayor of San Jose, California, whose international airport was later renamed after him.

In his long career, Secretary Mineta has not operated without controversy.

The Secretary led the fight against racial and ethnic profiling in the security screening process at the nation’s airports after 9/11. This action, many believe, weakened efforts to stop the people most likely to be terrorists in another 9/11, persons of Arab descent.

However, others agree with the secretary. For one reason, having a profile, instead of a unpredictable random system, makes it easier for potential terrorists to work around that profile. The recent arrests of seven people of non-Arab descent in the Miami area alleged to have been plotting the destruction of the Sears Tower in Chicago supports this point of view.

Secretary Mineta himself was profiled during World War II because of his family background.

In 1942, then 11-year-old Mineta was hauled from his home in San Jose to a concentration camp in Wyoming for the duration of the war because the government believed that he and all others of Japanese descent posed a security risk to the United States.

When asked by his parents to put on his best clothes for the trip to Wyoming, this son of immigrants donned his Little League uniform and grabbed his glove and bat. When federal agents tried to take the baseball bat from him, future secretary Mineta resisted and a tug of war pursued. He lost, but this kid may have been more American in attitude than those who decided to lock him up.

I haven’t always agreed with the Secretary. In my opinion, his views on the future of Amtrak border on clock cuckoo land.

However, please join me in thanking Secretary Mineta for his long and distinguished service to his country, and wishing him well.