Lots of people have commented on Audrey Hudson's report on how and why the flying imams were removed from the recent U.S. Airways flight. The one passage that caught my attention was this:

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans.

"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.

Ms. Jackson-Lee is perfectly happy to force airline employees and passengers to disregard a group of Muslim men exhibiting conspicuously strange behavior and climb on board a jet, but I'd bet she wouldn't be willing to get on that plane herself. I'm speculating, of course, but it strikes me as another example of liberals demanding that others bear the sort of risk they'd be unwilling to bear themselves were they in similar circumstances.

There's a rich irony to the story as well, given that Ms. Jackson-Lee has her own history of "terrorizing" air travelers with outrageously rude behavior - so much so she was eventually banned from flying Continental Airlines:

But in February 1998, things finally came to a head. On a flight home to Houston, Jackson Lee became enraged when flight attendants failed to produce the seafood special she liked. "Don't you know who I am?" she reportedly thundered. "I'm Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered!"

That outburst prompted a phone call to Jackson Lee from Rebecca Cox, vice president of Continental's government affairs office in Washington and the wife of California Republican Chris Cox. The message? Straighten up and fly right, or don't fly with us.

Cox did not return calls seeking comment, but a member of Jackson Lee's staff who fielded the call remembered Cox saying, "[Jackson Lee] screamed at the top of her lungs at least a minute. She embarrassed the flight attendants and the passengers in first class. And she embarrassed herself." Cox then joked, "We have already given her the Delta Airlines schedule."

Jackson Lee got back on board with Continental, but not for long. In May 1999, as Continental flight 1961 prepared to leave Reagan National Airport in Washington, Jackson Lee became flustered when she couldn't find her purse. Thinking she had left it in the boarding area, she went back to search for it. Meanwhile, the plane pulled away from the gate. Moments later, her purse was found onboard. According to aviation lobbyists at the time, Jackson Lee demanded that she be let back on the flight. Airline employees explained that FAA rules prohibit planes from returning to the gate once they've taxied away, but Jackson Lee was unconvinced. She accused the gate staff of racism and demanded to see their supervisor, who was a black woman. Her purse, meanwhile, was unceremoniously dropped out of the cockpit window and ferried back to her.

Ms. Jackson-Lee is often referred to as "Hurricane Sheila" because of her rudeness, temper, and the fact she made a big stink a few years ago that the names given to hurricanes by the National Weather Center were too "lily white" and not sufficiently ethnic sounding.

In The Washingtonian's most recent list of the "Best and Worst of Congress," Ms. Jackson-Lee finishes in second place as the House's "meanest" member, and she wins top honors as the chamber's "biggest windbag" and also "show horse" - meaning she can't get enough of seeing herself on TV.

In dishing out this last award, the editors of The Washingtonian quipped, "Staffers have proposed a drinking game to honor the Texan, who gets more than twice as many votes as others: 'Sheila Jackson-Lee is on C-Span. Do a shot.'"