A lot of morons need to read Robin Higgins’ letter.

And as they decide the legal status of Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, President Bush and his staff need to read it, too.

The morons are journalism professors, civil-rights attorneys, and several international organizations parading as champions of human rights, who are legally challenging U.S. treatment of Taliban terrorist captives. Those groups include the European Union, the Netherlands (including Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Jozias van Aartsen), Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Retired Lt. Col. Robin Higgins, wife of the late U.S. Marine Col. William R. “Rich” Higgins, wrote a must-read letter in Friday’s USA Today.

Col. Higgins was captured by Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1988. Hezbollah – the third largest component of bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, according to the Wall Street Journal – proudly displayed his hanging beaten body. Years of repeated brutal torture resulted in his July 1990 murder.

Where were these intellectual-elite lights of our world when Col. Higgins was being tortured by al-Qaida’s Hezbollah? Where were Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Europe, and the U.N. – for whom he was employed as a peacekeeper in Lebanon? Not a peep. Ditto for their deafening silence over kidnapped Beirut U.S. Embassy-based CIA Chief William Buckley, transferred by Hezbollah to Iran, and similarly tortured and bludgeoned to death.

The only parties Mrs. Higgins did hear from were U.S. State Department and other government officials who insisted her husband – unarmed as a U.N. Peacekeeper – was not a prisoner of war, but merely a detainee, not entitled to any human rights or their help.

Where was former Attorney General Ramsey Clark when Col. Higgins was treated worse than an animal by the sadistic animals of al-Qaida’s Hezbollah? Too busy sitting that one out because it didn’t fit his radical anti-American agenda the way Taliban prisoners do. Amnesty International and the Red Cross? With their selective, disgustingly political “commitment” to human rights, Higgins somehow wasn’t worthy of their support.

But under the Geneva Convention, the Taliban prisoners aren’t POWs, and Col. Higgins – who wasn’t treated so – was.

POWs are defined as soldiers who wear uniforms, carried their weapons openly, have a recognized hierarchy, and subscribe to the international norms of warfare.

The Taliban fighters match none of this. Can someone please describe the uniform of Taliban soldiers – other than filth, vitriol and disdain? As for their weapons, they often hid those like cowards, unless you count the teeth they often bare to bite people. Flying planes full of innocent people into buildings and cutting off the feet of women whose ankles were exposed – that’s hardly an international norm of warfare, as much as they’d like it to be. There was hardly an orderly identifiable Taliban hierarchy. With Mullah Omar running things at bin Laden’s behest, per Ayman el-Zawahiri’s instructions to him, it was more like a junta gang of a few – at the top, propagandizing a lot of lethal thugs who decapitate, amputate, torture and bite – at the bottom.

Contrast that with Col. Higgins. This man was a hero and an outstanding American, withstanding years of torture and losing his life to protect the very Lebanese and Palestinians who repaid him thusly. He was one of seven U.S. Marine Corps officers assigned to the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon in 1987. “He wore a uniform, had a recognized hierarchy and subscribed to the international norms of warfare – although as a United Nations peacekeeper, he was unarmed,” Mrs. Higgins wrote.

Besides further disgracing this country and Col. Higgins’ memory, there is absolutely no reason to give Taliban prisoners any more rights than they have already been generously granted. The only reason they were kept alive and brought here is to get information out of them about other terrorists and possible attacks. To ascribe to them POW status would defeat that purpose. Under the Geneva Convention, the prisoners would only be required to give us their name, rank and serial number, and no further information. As detainees, they don’t have that right and others. But still more rights than Col. Higgins ever got under their terror network’s “authority.”

Taliban prisoners are treated better here than people in their own country – or surrounding Communist Cuba. They are receiving three square meals a day, medical care, clothing, shelter, showers, Arabic translators, mail and the right and opportunity to pray five times a day to Allah to destroy America. The very fact they are receiving any of this is an abomination and perversion of the memory of Higgins, who was given none of these things during his years of torture at the hands of their ilk. And who had none of the worldly “human dignity” champions that these murderous thugs now enjoy – even while they try to bite and murder our personnel at the temporary prison.

“I know that even as he was dying of torture, abandoned by the Red Cross, and the United Nations, he thought of himself as a POW. I’m also sure he thought his country did, too,” Mrs. Higgins laments. The terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are not POWs. Col. Higgins was.

That he was treated otherwise is disgusting. That others would champion the rights of his tormentors’ buddies is doubly so.

It’s the perfect solution to disciplining a prominent American problem-child and Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: Send them our own scary Talibanesque Mike Tyson.

He’s the perfect match.

They’re radical Muslims. He’s our radical Muslim, having converted Malcolm-X-style to the religion during a previous stint in prison (in the tradition of cop-shooter H. Rap Brown and Tawana Brawley, both now Muslims). They bite. Tyson bites. When Taliban prisoners want to defeat our guards in Camp X-Ray, they bite them – the reason they are being muzzled. Tyson bites boxing opponents when it’s clear it’s the only way he’ll defeat them in and outside the ring. The only difference is that Taliban prisoners insist on only eating Halal meat, according to Muslim dietary laws (a demand in their recently filed “human rights” lawsuit), while Tyson’s menu features such tasty universal non-Halalish delicacies as Ear of Evander Holyfield and Leg of Lennox Lewis.

But when it comes down to it, Tyson and the Taliban prisoners have more than a little in common, stemming from their radical version of Islam. He’s a thug. They are thugs. They’re in prison. He was in prison and is about to go back.

And Tyson and the Taliban share bizarre and abrasive supporters. They both, for example, have strong support from loony Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Nutty Farrakhan championed Tyson’s cause and attacked his victim – when Tyson was accused (and later found guilty) of raping black beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington. Farrakhan now champions the cause of radical Islam and the Taliban and attacks their victims – us. He is constantly sending out missives and messages attacking our war on terror. There is no proof bin Laden and the Taliban perpetrated Sept. 11, he continues to insist. Just like he insisted there was no evidence that Tyson was a rapist. A jury of non-bow-tied normal people – whose names never ended in “X” – thought otherwise and found Tyson guilty.

Then, there is Tyson’s and the Taliban fighters’ respect for women. In the radical Muslim tradition, the Taliban fighters, unable to control even the simplest, most basic of impulses, insisted women be covered from head to toe in black – lest the Taliban men be thrown into a tizzy by sexual arousal from the sight of even a woman’s toenail. Those women who were not thusly covered were badly beaten and tortured. Some were murdered. Many were tortured or murdered for other assorted ridiculous reasons that brought about the unpredictable ire of the Taliban – ire as unpredictable as Tyson’s.

Tyson, unable to control the most simple, basic of impulses, has bragged that his favorite vision of first wife, Robin Givens, was when he hit her so hard that she flew in the air and hit each of the four walls. This brutal thug who makes – and spends – millions boxing the world’s strongest men for a living is as cowardly as the Taliban, beating harmless, defenseless women. There’s the Washington case and the newest alleged rape for which Tyson’s about to be charged.

Las Vegas police, who have requested the Clark County district attorney file felony charges against Tyson, have been investigating him for sexual assault of a woman in September. They have gathered a case file five-and-a-half inches thick stemming from the incident. Too bad for Mikey that he wasn’t a resident of the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Under that regime, his crime would likely go unnoticed, unpunished.

Still don’t believe Tyson’s guilty of Taliban-style violence against women? Read “My Bout With Mike Tyson” by London Guardian photographer Lisa Carpenter. At Tyson’s press conference meltdown, this week, Tyson grabbed his crotch and started shouting at Carpenter, “Bitch, come over here and see what you can do with this!” She’s lucky others were in the room to stop him.

If only the women who died under radical Islam in Afghanistan – and elsewhere –were as lucky.

Given Tyson’s egregious behavior, Nevada State Athletic Commission is now considering whether they’ll re-license Tyson to fight in his scheduled April 6 MGM bout with Lewis. Tyson needs this fight. Once again he has no money, and, conditioned on the fight, Showtime lent him $18 million to pay his taxes. Poor Mike. Were this country controlled by his Islamic religion – the stated goal of many of its radical forces here, he wouldn’t have to pay any taxes, but we non-Muslims would. That’s Islamic law.

Hopefully the Commission will deny him the boxing license. But if they don’t, and the fight goes on, here’s hoping Lewis gives Tyson a nice right hook and knocks him out.

Too bad he can’t do the same to radical Islam.

Martin Luther King Jr. is turning in his grave.

His own son – Martin Luther King III – Arabs and Al Sharpton are using his name in vain.

While many celebrated the civil rights leader’s memory yesterday, Sharpton, King III and Arab leaders desecrated it – repeatedly using King’s name to denounce “profiling” of Arabs and Muslims.

But, in the heart of Arab and Muslim America – the Detroit area – it’s Arabs who are doing the profiling. Blacks aren’t just being profiled by them, they’re being senselessly murdered, kidnapped and assaulted.

Just ask Kalvin Porter of Detroit. If only he could answer. He was beaten to death in May 1999 by Adel Altam and Fadhel Mazeb, Muslim Arabs from Yemen, in front of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Crystal. Porter’s “crime” was buying items at the Arab-owned Sunoco station where they worked – and defending his stepdaughter’s honor. The Arab Muslim clerks made lewd comments about the young girl. When Porter responded, “Why did you call my daughter [a lewd name]?” they beat Porter – a father of five – to death with a tire-iron, escaping justice at an O.J.-style trial.

It wasn’t the only incident of Detroit-area Arab-on-black violence. In July, a sexagenarian grandmother was assaulted at another Arab-owned Detroit gas station. Also in July, Adeeb J. Haddad, 58, was charged with assaulting a 13-year-old black boy at a gas station in Southfield, a Detroit suburb. A black customer was intentionally locked in a Ferndale gas station after arguing with an Arab attendant. Black customers were told by Arab owners of a South Lyon station that the bathrooms were out of order, which was false. Prosecution resulted.

Clearly, Arabs – who own over 80 percent of all gas stations in Metro-Detroit, according to figures provided by the Arab-American Chamber of Commerce to the Detroit News – are the ones guilty of profiling here – without hijackings or national security at stake. But when terrorism is involved and the shoe is on the other foot, the American Arab community is suddenly into civil rights instead of our safety.

Dr. King dreamed of the day when his children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Clearly, one of his progeny – King III – has never entered an Arab-owned gas station in Detroit, where the term often used for blacks is “abad” – slave. Arab activist Terry Ahwal told the Detroit Free Press, “Arabs believe blacks as people will steal from them or even kill them.”

That’s why Heaster Wheeler, NAACP Detroit’s executive director, when asked to denounce Arab-profiling, wrote, “There is no question as to where we stand on profiling. … The question is where do so many of the others stand? … American children of families patronize [Arabs'] stores … and few of these merchants … even provide safe passage in and out of their businesses.” NAACP President Rev. Wendell Anthony told the Free Press, “We cannot spend all of our energy concerned with our Arab-American brothers when at the same time they do not express the same concerns about us.”

Because of these incidents, Sharpton and his Michigan-based associate, Rev. Horace L. Sheffield III, were boycotting Detroit’s Arab-owned gas stations. Their “B-Gas Strategic Buying Campaign” – complete with late-night TV commercials urging gas purchase at black-owned stations – has suddenly disappeared now that Sharpton has hypocritically determined that a renewed alliance with Arabs is more advantageous to his power-grabbing enterprise.

Equally hypocritical, the same Arab leaders who expressed little remorse over Arabs’ poor treatment of black customers are now waving the Martin Luther King Jr. flag, just as easily as they waved the American flag after Sept. 11. In August, Imad Hamad, Michigan regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was attacking the black boycott, threatening that it would “escalate tensions.” But in October, in a Detroit News article decrying Arab profiling, Hamad was photographed holding documents “for a Martin Luther King scholarship program.” Ironically, the INS opposed U.S. citizenship for Hamad, a Muslim Arab, because he’s a suspected Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist – exactly the type of person we should be profiling.

Sharpton, who just months ago protested Arab profiling of blacks, is now joining hands with his profilers in the “civil rights” industry’s latest juggernaut, blaspheming all King stood for.

King demanded freedom for “our brothers in Africa … to live in peace under our own sovereignty,” not just in the United States. But Islamic and Arabic leaders with whom Sharpton is allying himself are supporters of Arab Muslim enslavement, gang rape, torture and murder of blacks in Sudan.

Arab leaders now allied with King III and Sharpton opposed the rescue of Ethiopian black Jews to freedom and opportunity in Israel. They oppose Zionism and the existence of a Jewish State in Israel.

But Dr. King was definitive on Arab Anti-Semites like Hamad and their civil-rights fakery. In his “Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend,” he wrote, “Anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so. … It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations.”

King recognized that those who “feel as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice and discrimination … have been misled … into thinking you can be ‘anti-Zionist’ and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.”

Dr. King wasn’t fooled by these racist profilers and their newfound commitment to civil rights. Shame on them for hijacking his good name.

Tennis Lolita Anna Kournikova soaks her billionaire ex-husband for millions.

Not the real Anna Kournikova. But Lisa Bonder, who was Anna Kournikova before there was Anna Kournikova – 20 years ago.

If you’ve read about Bonder’s child-support fight with her husband-for-a-month – billionaire Kirk Kerkorian – and before her, Anna Nicole Smith’s continuing travails over her deceased Methuselah of a husband – you’ve been introduced to litigation’s latest overcompensated victims: scorned women.

The current specimens all have ties to pro sports. But they’re stark examples of a clogged legal system turning relationships into lifelong ATM machines for women. They’re also excellent examples of the failure of feminism. In the end, these women achieve “independence” by using courts to mooch off men and the rest of society.

Whether it’s Bonder-Kerkorian, Kelci Stringer, or even Juanita Jordan (soon to be ex-wife of Michael), these “disadvantaged” women are out for an unearned payday bigger than winning the lottery.

Tennis fans likely remember Lisa Kerkorian as Lisa Bonder, the ’80s’ sexy, tall blonde from Michigan, who hit pro tennis’ top-10 rankings and dabbled in modeling and posters. Unlike Kournikova, she never achieved the crossover appeal outside the tennis world that garners the Russian tennis starlet an estimated $15 million per year in endorsement income. But Bonder did garner enough lucrative endorsements and tournament winnings to keep her in comfort.

She should be set for life, rather than seeking out, shacking up with, and shaking down a senior-citizen billionaire, Kerkorian.

Instead, Bonder, 36, had a multi-year affair with Kerkorian, 84, beginning in 1991. Does anyone believe a 26-year-old was truly interested in a 74-year-old? She was likely more interested in his billions. Kerkorian, the MGM studio and casino mogul worth over $6 billion, is so wealthy that he was the single-largest non-institutional stockholder in Chrysler and threatened a hostile takeover in the ’90s.

But while he easily fought Chrysler’s then-Chairman Lee Iaccoca, Kerkorian met his match in the scheming Bonder. He refused her constant begging for marriage so, in 1997, she got pregnant with his daughter. In a move to legitimize the child’s birth, they married on the condition that she waive all spousal support and divorce a month later.

But Bonder found a way to get paid for this high-class prostitution act: child-support, perhaps the only reason she had this child with an 80-year-old. The prenuptial pact set per month support at $35,000, the divorce agreement specified $50,000 monthly, and Kerkorian has been voluntarily paying $75,000 per month for a 3-year-old! Not enough, says Bonder, who sued for $320,000 per month, claiming the young child needs $144,000 monthly for travel, $7,000 monthly for charity, and $102,000 monthly for food.

Bonder lives in three estates, worth a combined $26 million. Yet, she’s using the legal system – and her daughter – to play the victim. That’s the legacy of feminism: Even rich, “independent” women’s sports stars resort to shacking up with octogenarians and suing them for a big payday.

Kelci Stringer is another “victim.” It’s lamentable her pro-football player husband, Korey Stringer, died in Minnesota Vikings training camp on a hot day. But, as a first-round draft pick and starter, he was well compensated and insured for risk of injury. Stringer was also paid his multi-million dollar salary to stay in shape. But he didn’t – getting fat over the off-season, dangerously trying to lose it and get in shape just a few days before camp.

But is that his fault? Not according to Mrs. Stringer’s lawyers (and Jesse Jackson, who has – surprise! – interjected himself in this shakedown). They’ve filed a $100 million lawsuit against the Vikings. No matter that out-of-shape Stringer was up to a bloated 335-pounds. Newspaper photos showed him doubling over, gasping for breath during drills that in-shape athletes finessed.

Mrs. Stringer is a “victim,” and instead of quietly dealing with her grief, everyone else must pay for this woman “scorned” by the Vikings. Costs of the suit will be passed on to Vikings’ ticket-buying fans who, unlike wealthy Mrs. Stringer, are mostly working-class stiffs.

Don’t feel sorry for Juanita Jordan – divorcing wife of basketball great, Michael – either. According to the New York Post, she put up with his affairs for years, tailing him with a private investigator.

What did she expect? Her own marriage was the result of a tawdry, litigious affair. She met Michael at Bennigan’s restaurant in Chicago in 1988, got pregnant, gave birth and slapped him with a paternity suit. To avoid the suit, Michael whisked her off to a tacky Vegas quickie-wedding at the Little White Wedding Chapel in 1989. What an omen for the kind of smarmy marriage she’d have with a philandering sports star.

But even though she had prior warning and was an operative from the beginning in this questionable partnership, she could win 90 percent of the Jordans’ property under Illinois law. Illinois is not a community-property state. Rather than splitting property 50-50, fault is a factor in deciding property division. Totally immoral, should Jordan’s philandering, of which former groupie Juanita was well aware, entitle her to 90 percent of his worth? Is she really a victim? Under the law, yes.

The song, “The Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves,” is bogus. Just look on the sports pages and the overburdened courthouses. For these newest Anna Nicole Smiths, The Sisters Are Suing it For Themselves. The litigation Lolitas will get their big payday in court.

They’re young, they’re cute and, if you’re male, they hate you.

That seems to be the common theme of late for pop’s top selling starlets – jihad against men. They have the sweet voices of sirens, but their words bear the screaming vitriol of Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.

The latest is Brandy, singer and star of UPN Network’s defunct sitcom dud “Moesha.” Her latest single, “What About Us?” plays out on a soon-to-be released video of Brandy lamenting a failed relationship, while standing on a hill. But, according to MTV News’ Shaheem Reid, the hill is made of men. “The camera zooms out and we see that beneath the ground Brandy stands on, hundreds of agonizing men, down on all fours, are stacked on top of each other.”

To add a little touch of sado-masochism, there are the two chained-up, body-painted men at her feet, while Brandy, dressed in tough warrior garb, uses a metal baseball bat to smash a chest of mementos from her evil boyfriend. Of course, the video wouldn’t be complete without the required act of she-woman violence against men. This is the new “girl power.”

Brandy’s spokesperson told MTV News that “this simply has to do with her growing up. Like her fellow pop princess peer, Britney Speers, she’s not a little girl anymore.” From saccharin bubble-gum popster to man-torturer? If that’s growing up for today’s girls, we’re all in trouble. It seems like just yesterday, Brandy was singing, “The Boy is Mine.” Now she’s a female thug out to smash the boy up. Great.

Imagine the outcry from feminists if the roles were reversed. Take a couple of Backstreet Boys or N’Sync dudes, wanting to shed their image as girlish members of boy bands. Add a mountain of women on all fours with the men walking all over them. Then chain some of the women up, groveling at the male singers’ feet. Put in a touch of violence, smashing objects in the women’s faces. Would we put up with that? Not likely. It’s as bad as Eminem. But it comes and goes without the protestation. That’s the new feminism – when the tables are turned, anything goes for pop princesses.

Brandy is just the latest. But there’s a whole stack of them.

Take Blu Cantrell. Last year, she hit it big with her top-10 groove, “Hit Em Up Style (Oops).” The song has the sound and feel of a 1940′s ballad, with Cantrell’s angelic voice. But listen to the words, and you’ll hear Steinem and Ms. Magazine screeching from the CD player. “Hit Em Up Style” is Cantrell’s term for bankrupting your man when you catch him cheating – an inevitability in feminist pop. There’s no physical violence advocated here. Just vengeful damage to his credit.

“Hey ladies, when your man wanna get buck wild, just go back and hit em up style. Get your hands on his cash and spend it to the last dime. Oh when you go, then everything goes, from the crib to the rod to the clothes,” sings Cantrell. “So you better let him know, that if he mess up, ya gotta hit em up.” Nice grammar.

Yes, if your daughter listens to top-40 tunes, this is what she’s told will make her a “lady.” Cantrell has several suggestions of “another way to make him pay for it all”: “Neiman Marcus on a shoppin’ spree;” “All his pictures and the clothes in the baggin’”; And selling “everything else till there was just nothing left.” It makes Cantrell happy that “all of this I sold, left you out in the cold and all of this I sold will take you until you get old to get em back without me.”

Teaching women to steal and cheat to get back at a man, to bankrupt him – what a classy message.

Then there’s pop trio, “Destiny’s Child.” They’ve got three songs attacking men as failures and unnecessary. “Bills, Bills, Bills” excoriates men as “You trifling, good for nothing type of brother, Oh silly me, why haven’t I found another … a scrub like you who don’t know what a man’s about.” “Hey Ladies” (why do all of these pop stars think anyone who listens to them could possibly be a lady?) asks “why is it that men can go do us wrong; Why is it that we just decide to keep holdin’ on … But he’s got to go, he’s got to go … My man’s been cheatin’ on me … Yeah he did me wrong.” Then there’s “Survivor.” “Now that you are out of my life, I’m so much better … stronger … richer … wiser … smarter. I’m a survivor.”

Three bitter songs. Sounds like these barely dressed women from Destiny’s Child are the problem, not the men who put up with them.

With idols like this, it’s no wonder so many kids grow up to have marriages that end in divorce. For girls listening to top-40, no man will ever be able to compete with pop princesses’ disastrous girl-power philosophy. For them, all men are losers.

A 15-year-old deliberately crashes a plane into a Tampa building, with a note supporting Osama bin Laden.

And the politically correct media blame it on pimple medicine.

Rather than examining Charles Bishop’s Middle Eastern background and informing us that Bishop is half Arabic, the media relies on the old “Twinkie Defense.” With a new twist: The acne medication made him do it.

Sticking to the absurd blame-it-on-Accutane story, very few media outlets reported other more relevant information, like Bishop’s real surname: Bishara, an Arabic name which was legally changed to Bishop, according to the Australian Herald Sun. He thanked his teacher for calming anti-Muslim feelings in the school-building among her students, hinting that for all he knew, he could be part-Arab, the paper reported.

Why did it take Australia’s Herald Sun, in a land far away, to investigate legal records regarding Bishara-Bishop and his father’s foreign-status – believed to be Syrian? The New York Post later reported it, but few others did. FOX News Channel even featured Arab Muslim civil-rights advocates pointing to Bishara-Bishop as an example of non-Arab terrorism.

Strangely, while Court TV, C-SPAN and a gaggle of other broadcast news sources are fighting to televise terrorist Zaccarias Moussaoui’s trial – and turn it into another O.J. spectacle – few media outlets are fighting for the release of the full text of Bishara-Bishop’s suicide note.

Maybe because the conventional media wants you to believe that this was just another all-American suicidal teen-age loner, a patriotic kid with absolutely no ties to terrorists in the Arab world. But do we really know that?

According to Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder, Bishara-Bishop’s two-page-long suicide note “had some other things in there that we prefer not to talk about [since] the investigation is still ongoing, but everything in the note mentioned things that occurred on Sept. 11 and his support of bin Laden and al-Qaida.” Were this simply a copycat suicide, the mysterious contents of the note would be released, not kept confidential while “under investigation.”

As for Bishara-Bishop’s heritage, we don’t know the extent of his contact with his father, whether the father has connections to terrorism, or even where the father is. For all we know, he might be an al-Qaida terrorist, safely in the Middle East or somewhere in the U.S., planning an attack. Maybe the unreleased portions of the suicide note refer to this, but because of a lax media, we don’t know. Where is the network news on this? It’s like playing “Where’s Waldo.”

Instead, we’re being told Bishara-Bishop was a “superpatriot,” in the words of his flight school’s president, Bob Cooper. Many flight school instructors described Sept. 11 terrorists as nice guys, too. The lesson here is that lip-service can be deceiving. While many Muslims are hard-working, loyal Americans, some of the most vocally patriotic may not be.

Cavalierly dismissing a terrorism connection, the media – from the Washington Post to ABCNews.com to the Associated Press – began running stories blaming Bishop’s suicide mission on Accutane, the powerful acne pills produced by Hoffman-La Roche. Accutane has been unjustly vilified over the last year due to the suicide of Congressman Bart Stupak’s, D-Mich., son, who was taking Accutane at the time.

While Stupak’s loss is regrettable, his son would not be the first teenage child of a politician, who felt neglected because daddy was too busy politicking in Washington and the district. Rather than address that possibility, Stupak began an interminable crusade of congressional hearings against Accutane, claiming the acne medicine causes suicide and depression. No doctor he, Stupak’s kangaroo court will only serve to drive up the cost of Accutane to those who need it.

Stupak has a special tax-funded website and e-mail address soliciting venom with which to attack Accutane maker Hoffman-La Roche. The media’s haste to blame Bishop’s suicide flight on Accutane adds more fuel to Stupak’s witch-hunt.

While it’s true that, according to the FDA, 147 people on Accutane from 1982-2000 either committed suicide or attempted it, that’s actually much lower than the overall suicide rate for youth aged 15 to 24 – the age range of most Accutane users. Since over 20,000,000 people took Accutane over the last 19 years, that’s a paltry combined suicide/attempted suicide rate of .000735 per 100,000 on the drug. Yet, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control, the 1998 (the latest year for which data is available) suicide rate for those aged 15 to 24 was around 11.3 per 100,000.

Accutane – which virtually erases acne and is the only treatment for severe or nodular, scarring acne – probably prevents a lot of pimply, less attractive teens (like Bishop), from committing suicide. The statistics bear that out. There is absolutely no conclusive evidence that the drug causes depression or suicide. But in their zeal to attack the big, bad pharmaceutical industry and remain politically correct, the media never reports this.

Enough about acne medicine.

It’s time the press started covering the real story about this “sweet boy” who nearly strafed MacDill Air Force Base, where Central Command for foreign wars, including this one, is based.

It’s time for them to look into the whereabouts and activities of his father and the contents of the suicide note. We all deserve to know.

He’s President Bush’s least-favorite pilot.

But we should all applaud the embattled Captain “X,” unnamed pilot of American Airlines Flight 363, who refused to allow a suspicious, belligerent, armed passenger to fly on his plane, Christmas Eve.

President Bush says he’d be “madder than heck” if Wallid Shatter – an Arab Muslim member of Bush’s Secret Service PPD (Presidential Personal Detail) – was profiled by Captain “X.”

But President Bush, unlike the rest of us, flies Air Force One, where security is much tighter than on the average commercial flight. And Shatter would probably be canned from the Secret Service – let alone banned from Air Force One – had he been as abusive and threatening to the captain and crew of Air Force One as was his behavior, according to Captain “X”‘s and his System Operations Control center manager’s reports posted on American Airlines’ website.

Shatter was armed. He was visibly an Arab (as were the Sept. 11 hijackers). He was belligerent, appeared nervous, and flight attendants reported to the captain that his behavior “appeared to be strange” – that they were very concerned. Shatter admittedly filled out Form E2 for armed federal agents incorrectly – not once or twice, but three times. There were doubts whether his Secret Service ID was legitimate. No terrorist ever used a fake ID before, right? Remember Sept. 11′s phony ramp passes and airport IDs?

When his credentials and right to board – armed – were scrutinized by captain and crew, Shatter responded with hostility and abuse, threatening, “that he has the powers of the White House behind him and this is not of [sic] the end to the matter,” according to Captain “X”‘s report. “The police agreed with me that there was a legitimate concern.”

When Shatter’s bag was searched like other passengers’, “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes,” by Amin Maalouf – a book that presents the “Arab side” of the Crusades and laments a lack of Arab unity against the West – appeared. To paraphrase author Howard Bloom, according to Maalouf, the Arab world sees today’s Western world as a continuation of the Crusades. It’s no surprise that Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a pro-Arab Muslim terrorist publication, gushes over the book carried by Special Agent Shatter. After all, according to its February 1989 review, two of three divisions of the terrorist PLO are named after medieval battles fought between the Crusaders and Arab Muslim forces in the Levant. If President Bush still believes there is no radical Islamic war against the West, he’d better check with his “profiled” bodyguard.

Hmmm … a nervous, belligerent, armed Arab Muslim passenger, with questionable federal identification, and Arab anti-Western propaganda. Would you want to risk your life on a plane with this guy?

Shatter claims he’s not out for money, just an apology. Yet, he’s hired Relman and Associates, a firm farmed out by groups like the NAACP and Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Hamas front-group, to shake down wealthy corporations in alleged discrimination class-action lawsuits. There’s Relman et al’s lawsuits against Adam’s Mark Hotels; and against KB Toys for not accepting checks in allegedly “black” neighborhoods. Don’t forget Relman’s big score against Denny’s and Avis Rent-a-Car. “We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Relman lawyer Christy Lopez, laughing all the way to the bank – to the risk of our safety.

Interestingly, the two most prominent cases of alleged profiling of Arab-American passengers involve suspicious and belligerent, yet very self-important individuals – Shatter, and before him, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., aka Jihad Darrell. Issa arrived more than an hour late to an international flight with a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia.

Details of his tantrum match those of Shatter’s. But instead of propaganda in his luggage, his baggage is pro-Hezbollah statements from a number of sources, including page 22 of the May 9, 2001, House Subcommittee on South Asia and the Middle East deliberations of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, in which he praised the bin Laden-allied Hezbollah terrorists – killers of hundreds of Americans – “in all candor, for the good things they do, too, the humanitarian, the hospitals, the schools that they pay.”

He’s a bigwig, but would you want to fly with Hezbollah’s biggest fan in Congress? He plans to introduce legislation making it easier to sue airlines like American for “profiling,” and as I predicted in an earlier column, trial lawyers are drooling over this new source of loot.

Lawyers aside, the FAA leaves the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the passengers to the pilot in command. Had Shatter turned out to be a terrorist and blown up the plane, Captain X would certainly be blamed for ignoring so many obvious hints that something might not be right about Wallid Shatter. And 125 passengers would die.

American Airlines already lost two planes full of extinguished lives to terrorism. Want to die for Allah in the name of trial lawyers’ version of civil rights? Then, get on a flight with the next Wallid Shatter – who might turn out to be a terrorist instead of a member of the president’s Secret Service detail.

I’d rather fly with courageous Captain “X” – a hero erring on the side of the ultimate civil right: life.

Sean Penn’s most memorable role was as Jeff Spicoli, airhead Valley Guy surfer, in Cameron Crowe’s 1982 hit film, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

But, Penn’s recent interview with Talk Magazine, comprising the magazine’s February cover story, is more confirmation that life imitates art. Penn not only played an airhead in the movies, he is one.

Among his ridiculous comments, Penn criticizes FOX News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly and nationally syndicated radio host Howard Stern as more horrible than Osama bin Laden, saying, “I’d like to trade O’Reilly for bin Laden,” comparing him to Adolph Hitler, and calling him “an embraced pariah.” FYI, Spicoli: A pariah, by definition, is not embraced. Penn also attacks President Bush.

It’s obvious Penn has a problem with O’Reilly’s conservative views. But here’s a news flash for Penn: He’s out of touch with America, which has made “The O’Reilly Factor,” the highest-rated cable news show, and turned “embraced pariah” O’Reilly into a much bigger celebrity than has-been Penn is today. As for Stern, he’s been great on the issue of terrorism and raised over $4 million for Sept. 11 victims, all of which has gone straight to them. And unlike Penn, millions of people listen to what he says.

Apparently, Penn is desperate to promote his new movie, “I Am Sam” (in which he plays a retarded father fighting for child-custody) – and will say anything ludicrous to do so. But he’s hardly the one to criticize Bush, O’Reilly, or Stern or anybody.

Who is Sean Penn? He’s a failed movie actor, who’s become an also-ran since his big role as Spicoli. Unless you count his real-life co-dependent gig as Mr. Madonna, being married to and then dumped by the blonde pop dominatrix. There’re also his sorry roles as criminal and inmate in films like “Bad Boys” and bad cop in “Colors” – a film whose greatest accomplishment was provoking violent gang fights in movie theaters.

A brat in the movies, Penn’s no prize in real life. In 1987, he served 32 days in jail for slugging a “Colors” extra and has had numerous other such incidents. In the ’90s, the classy Penn urinated into a bottle in front of several starlets and a Rolling Stone reporter. Surprise, he’s used acid and is an outspoken ally of Hollywood-drug-addict-with-9-lives, Robert Downey, Jr. After years of living with, cheating on, and fathering two illegitimate kids with actress-girlfriend Robin Wright, Penn finally married her. She played “The Princess Bride” in the movies, but her husband is no prince – more like the frog. His views, though, have all the truth of a fairy tale.

Penn graduated from playing a stoner, street-punks, and a bad cop, to propaganda films, like the anti-death penalty diatribe, “Dead Man Walking.” Then, there are his assorted “finer” roles, like a sleazy criminal lawyer who snorts cocaine while having sex with coked-up strangers on a toilet in a public restroom, in the movie, “Carlito’s Way.” Now, we know what Penn means when he differentiates himself from O’Reilly, saying, “This is not a man sitting on the toilet with a smile on his face.”

Yes, this is the same Sean Penn who now tells Talk, that Bush, “doesn’t provoke thought or challenge my head or my spirit. I don’t think he does the country’s either.” In the midst of war, Bush should be worrying about provoking the thought and challenging the head and spirit of our real-life Jeff Spicoli. Penn’s toilet-coke-sex scene really did a lot for this country’s thought and spirit.

Sorry, Sean, but President Bush currently has this country’s approval rating in percents reaching the high 80s. As for your movies, well that’s a different, but very pathetic story. Does anyone remember a thought-provoking, spirit-challenging Sean Penn movie? Other than “Fast Times,” does anyone even remember seeing a Sean Penn movie? Didn’t think so. His “Shanghai Surprise” was panned by critics as one of the worst movies of all time.

In his nutty interview, Penn, who calls O’Reilly “grumpy,” speaks of his rage-filled hatred of O’Reilly, Stern and FOX mogul Rupert Murdoch. Poor guy. Murdoch wouldn’t let him use the FOX jet to a screening of “The Thin Red Line” and wanted a bigger star than Penn in order to produce “I am Sam.” Penn’s wacky politics are illustrated by a framed jacket of Christopher Hitchens’ preposterous “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” on his wall, and his rage over a 1999 Oscar for anti-Communist director Elia Kazan.

It’s no surprise Talk Magazine would give Penn’s irrelevant left-wing views a prominent airing. The magazine is run by Friend of Hillary, Tina Brown. Interestingly, in the very same issue, another article, “Goodbye, Angels,” claims that blonde conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway are through. Reality check: They’re bigger than ever. Brown’s Talk just wishes it weren’t that way, and that Spicoli’s America was reality. It isn’t.

In “Fast Times,” Penn’s long-haired, pot-smoking Spicoli sets his goals high in life: “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz and I’m fine.”

If only reality’s Spicoli-Penn would stick to that and shut his mouth, we’d all be fine.

It may be a new year, but the National Basketball Association has more of the same old things. Like the pro-league’s double standard when it comes to racism.

Dan Issel, head coach of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets knows about this double standard well. Actually, he’s now former head coach because of comments he made to a Hispanic fan after a game. While many black NBA players who make up the bulk of the league’s roster have made similar offensive remarks, they remain on the multi-million dollar payroll. But Issel, who is white, starts 2002 looking for work.

On Dec. 11, after a loss to the Charlotte Hornets, Issel was heckled by a fan, who uttered, “You suck, *******!” Issel replied, “Hey go buy another beer. Go drink another beer, you ****** Mexican piece of ****.” The Nuggets immediately suspended Issel for four games without pay – a loss of over $112,000. The next day, Issel apologized for his “uncaring and un-Christian-like comment.”

But that wasn’t enough for the Hispanic community of Denver, who demanded Issel’s head. Thursday, Issel resigned under pressure.

Were Issel’s comments insensitive, improper and bigoted? Yes. As a professional coach in the big leagues, shouldn’t Issel have expected to be heckled and to ignore it? Certainly. (In fact, in another publicized incident, Issel himself benched player Tariq Abdul-Wahad for using such language with him.)

But did Issel deserve to be fired? Definitely not.

The NBA has a hypocritical double standard on racism. Minorities in the NBA can say and do whatever they want with apparent impunity, or in the worst case scenario, a slap on the hand.

Whereas Issel apologized, was fined significantly, met with leaders of Denver’s Hispanic community, etc., other NBA employees have made equally bigoted comments – unprovoked by drunken, obnoxious fans – with no penalty. And little remorse.

Take New York Knicks’ Charlie Ward. Last April, he and teammate Allan Houston made blatantly anti-Semitic comments about Jews. What happened? No Issel treatment. Instead, NBA Commissioner David Stern said, “Despite suggestions that the NBA should penalize Ward for his words, I am not planning to do so,” claiming that punishment would somehow “enhance his sense of martyrdom.” Huh? More like it would have hurt the NBA’s pocketbook and the Knicks’ – in the midst of the playoffs at the time. Stern added that Ward’s only punishment would be having “to accept the reactions and judgments of fans.” That reaction was a loud boo at the beginning of his next game and cheers ever since.

Big punishment.

True, Ward apologized. But so did Issel. And only one of them is out of a job. One could argue, as Nuggets supporters do, that a third of the population in Denver – and a large percentage of the Nuggets’ customers – are Hispanic. But the same argument can equally be made about heavily Jewish New York City and the Knicks.

The difference is that Hispanics and blacks are politically correct minorities in the NBA’s eyes. They can’t be insulted, but other groups apparently can. And minorities in the NBA can get away with saying just about anything. That’s the not-so-subliminal message the NBA sent last week. And while Issel’s fine, suspension, and subsequent “resignation”/”buyout” were forced by the Nuggets, omniscient Stern was definitely involved every step of the way.

This isn’t the first time the NBA employed double standards on bigotry. In 1987, after the Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons in the seven-game East finals due to Larry Bird’s fantastic performance, Isiah Thomas remarked that, sure, Bird was good, but, “If Bird was black, he’d be just another good guy.” He said this to confirm his then-teammate Dennis Rodman’s racist comments. Never one to miss out on media publicity, Rodman whined that Bird was “overrated” and received media praise and attention only “because he is white.” (Not apparently because Bird – with several MVP seasons and the first NBA player to shoot better than 50 percent from the field and 90 percent from the foul line for consecutive seasons – had just spanked Thomas and Rodman on the court.) NBA response to these comments: nothing. Stern: silent. No punishment for Rodman or Thomas.

Then, there’s the not-so-genteel Sir Charles Barkley. In response to reporters after a game, he said, “That’s what I hate about white people.” NBA Response: nothing. Stern: silent. No penalty for Barkley.

Then, of course, there’s Philadelphia 76ers’ gangsta-in-residence, Allen Iverson. Not only did he blow up at a heckling fan, a la Issel, last season, but he also made a gangsta-rap album, promoting murder and violence against women and gays. Again, not wanting to alienate its politically correct minority customer, the NBA’s response was: nothing. Stern made another slap-on-the-hand statement. No penalty for Iverson.

And who can forget professional choker (and basketball player), Latrell Sprewell? With a great deal of his punishment overturned, quickly reinstated to the NBA, and now playing for the Knicks, USA Today reported that he and former chokee/coach P.J. Carlesimo (now a TV hoops commentator), were all lovey-dovey, wishing each other a happy holiday, as if this “saint” wasn’t a thug who violently assaulted his former boss.

No one’s asking the NBA to be the thought police. But it’s time for the league to stop deeming some animals in its Orwellian barnyard more equal than others. Since our taxes fund their arenas, we must demand no less.

The more terrorist sympathizers change, the more they stay the same.

At long last, the University of South Florida has fired Islamic Jihad’s U.S. chief, Professor Sami Al-Arian.

But Al-Arian’s long overdue firing is not enough. He should be deported, at the very least – and more deservedly, he should be punished with a long prison term.

And the University of South Florida should be punished along with him for waiting so long to do the right thing, and for doing so for the wrong reasons.

In my previous columns, I’ve outlined how Dr. Al-Arian operated the U.S. front group for Islamic Jihad and Hamas, how he laundered money for the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, how he advocated death to America and her allies, how he employed known bin Laden buddy Tarik Hamdi (who supplied the satellite phone which prosecutors say was instrumental to bin Laden’s blowing up of the U.S. embassies in 1998), how he openly raised money for Islamic Jihad’s terrorist operations at prominent mosques all over America, how he brought terrorists from Islamic Jihad – including current Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shallah – into the United States by lying for them (just as he lied on his own citizenship application and related hearings) – all felonies.

Yet, with all of these activities, the University of South Florida somehow did not feel it was enough to get rid of this man. Years of complaints by the Tampa community and Florida taxpayers and years of negative stories about the professor who orchestrated the successful bombing of a school bus filled with Israeli children, was somehow not enough to fire this man.

What got this terrorist fired from the USF was not that he was a fundraiser and orchestrater of murder. No, it was the bad publicity of an appearance on FOX News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor,” columns like mine on the Internet, and some angry USF parents whose kids didn’t want to go to school with the bloody professor anymore.

It certainly wasn’t spineless USF President Judy Genshaft who caused the firing of the terrorist professor. In fact, Genshaft hemmed and hawed all along the way at what should have been a no-brainer. And when she finally did it, at a hastily called, barely publicized meeting last Wednesday, the University resorted to legalese and a wimpy letter citing Al-Arian’s undue publicity, causing disruption to the university.

How sad that a university doesn’t have the guts to denounce criminal activity when it takes the form of terrorism. How sad that a university can’t just say terrorism is wrong and terrorists are unacceptable faculty members and educators.

The debate over whether to fire Al-Arian was framed as a debate over academic freedom during war.

Sorry, President Judy, but this was never about academic freedom. Academic freedom never included planning murder operations. If it did, Ted Bundy would be professor emeritus, rather than rigor mortis. Academic freedom is about the free flow of ideas, no matter how repugnant. It is not about the free commission of those ideas, no matter how repugnant. If it were, Jack Kevorkian would be a top academician. So would Charles Manson.

This wasn’t about Al-Arian’s free speech. There are plenty of Muslim and Arab college professors throughout this country who spout their hate and justification for murder of innocents by terrorists, and continue to enjoy their right to inhumane utterances. But, unlike Al-Arian, they aren’t necessarily taking part in this terror. And every year, universities fire profs for crimes, like child molestation, and unethical behavior, like affairs with students. Yet, apparently, engaging in several felonies, planning bloody terrorist operations and advocating “a river of blood that does not stop gushing, from martyrdom to martyrdom, from Jihad to Jihad” is no big deal at USF. There’s nothing unethical about it to President Genshaft and her university trustees, apparently.

I can’t totally blame the USF president, because she learned from another president, George W. Bush, that this terrorist mastermind was an acceptable guest at the American table. Somehow, Dr. Al-Arian, the terrorist, was invited to the White House on more than one occasion. (How he got invited is unclear, but when the Wall Street Journal documented Al-Arian’s terrorist activities, the New Republic reports that he copied conservative activist and influential White House adviser Grover Norquist with his complaint letter.)

But, while President Bush may not have known the specifics of Al-Arian’s acumen in terrorism, President Genshaft and her elitist USF coterie certainly did. But, they never cared about the dead Israeli children – or even the American victims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – like Alisa Flatow. No, what they cared about was alumni membership, fundraising, student recruitment, research funding and news coverage. Lives and the immorality of murder were of no apparent concern to this university.

Since President Genshaft apparently found terrorism on her campus more palatable than bad publicity, she should be fired too. Her morality – like that of most universities, today – is located solely in her pocketbook.