Mark Steyn is a well respected and completely trustworthy journalist.

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I know, but I was not sure if this is a fact or satire. Not always easy to know these days.

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Yes it is. I've read this story before.

Are you asking about the Bryant encounter or some outrageous quotes from po-mo and multi-culti crowd? I think that the quotes are authentic; as for the Bryant, it has been reported before.

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Yeah. I must have forgotten. Sometimes the reality is difficult to distinguish from satire.

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Судя по гуглю - она это все выдумала, см. http://edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid11.htm

В http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/911rpt имя этой тетки не упоминается.

Вывод - журналистская халтура.

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Uh-huh. The plot thickens.

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Каким образом?

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В смысле, разнобой в комментариях.

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Не вижу разнобоя. Два предыдущих комментатора подтвердили, что когда-то что-то читали про эту тетку - так о ней ведь и писали. Просто это было давно, и если сегодня журналист решил закрутить свою статью вокруг этой истории, то должен был бы перепроверить ее именно сегодня.

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Это не совсем понятная история. Первое упоминание появилось 25 сент 2001 года, когда эта женщина отказалась комментировать, ссылаясь на ФБР:

Epling said yesterday that his bank, headquartered in Homestead, received a call from the FBI seven to 10 days ago saying that Atta had gone into a USDA office that until recently was in the bank's building. The agents asked if Atta had applied for such a loan from Community Bank, since USDA employees had apparently suggested to Atta that he try Epling's bank.

Several USDA employees had recently identified Atta to the FBI, and recalled that he wore Tommy Hilfiger clothes and a lot of cologne, according to the FBI version of events provided to the bank.

Epling said one employee had a vague memory of an encounter. "All he remembers is an inquiry about a loan for buying crop-dusters," Epling said of his employee. The employee thought the inquiry was in 2000 and did not remember the customer well enough to identify him as Atta, Epling said. The FBI said Atta may have gone to the USDA offices in April 2000, Epling said.

Employees in the USDA's Farm Service Agency, whose local office has since moved to neighboring Florida City, referred questions to a supervisor in the state headquarters. At a reporter's request, Kevin Kelley, state executive director for the USDA's Florida Farm Service Agency, contacted Johnell Bryant, a USDA loan manager in Florida City, to ask what had happened.

Kelley said Bryant declined to comment. "She said she was told by authorities not to speak about it," Kelley said. FBI officials also declined to comment.

Washington Post, 9-25-2001, p.A12

В начале июня 2001 года она дала интервью ABC, настолько красочное, что оно кажется неправдоподобным:

Mohamed Atta, the man believed to have been the ringleader of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, asked a Department of Agriculture official for a loan in April or May 2000 to buy a crop-duster and questioned her about security at the World Trade Center and buildings in Washington, the official said in an interview that appeared last night on ABC News.

He also spoke to her about Al Qaeda and praised Osama bin Laden.

The official, Johnell Bryant, said she told Mr. Atta that he could not have a loan of $650,000 to buy a twin-engine, six-passenger plane, which he wanted to equip with a very large tank. He then became agitated, Ms. Bryant said, and asked her what was to keep him from slitting her throat and stealing money from the safe behind the desk in her Florida office.

"He started accusing me of discriminating against him because he was not a United States citizen," Ms. Bryant said.

When she told him that there was no money in the safe and that she was trained in martial arts, he asked how he could get such training.

Later in their meeting, she said, he told her he wanted to buy an aerial picture of Washington that hung in her office. He pulled out a wad of cash and threw money on her desk, even after she said she would not sell it. He asked about the White House and Pentagon, and she pointed them out.

In their conversation, he said that Al Qaeda could use someone with her qualifications, and mentioned Osama bin Laden, Ms. Bryant said.

"He mentioned that this man would someday be known as the world's greatest leader," she said. "I didn't know who he was talking about."

<...>

He also asked if he would be able to visit various landmarks in Washington, since he was not a citizen.

"I told him that there wouldn't be a problem with that, that there is security inside of most of the buildings," she said, but it would be like that found inside airports.

Ms. Bryant said she thought she was simply helping a new immigrant learn about this country.

"Should I have picked up the telephone and called someone?" she said. "You can't ask me that more often than I have asked myself that. I don't know how I could possibly expect myself to have recognized what that man was. And yet sometimes I haven't forgiven myself."

New York Times, 6-7-2002, p.24

Изложение интервью было напечатано в газетах, но никаких дальнейших материалов в печати не было (кроме сегодняшней статьи Стейна в Australian и Irish Times).

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В начале июня 2002 года

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Всё равно неясно.

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Зачем проверять истинность истории, когда она так хорошо подходит под точку зрения автора?

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Вот у меня и вопрос поэтому: была ли история, или это сатира, или обман? И если выдумка, то чья?

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Is that a bad joke ?!!

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Well. Definitely not a good joke.

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