The matter of Prof. Murphy which I touched on, briefly when writing on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, is continuing. The consensus amongst the rightish (defined as "Iraq war supporting", plus Orin Kerr) blogosphere is that Prof. Murphy has mistaken a normal "random" search for inclusion with the no-fly list, and there is probably no repression involved, here.
James Taranto, in his Best of the Web Today column, notes that many who originally supported it seem to be backpedaling from the story. He observes that CruncyCon Dreher "manfully acknowledges having overreacted," and that Mark Graber (who broke the story on Balkinazation) "now writes of Murphy, 'Perhaps he has lost his mind or his judgment has gone horribly awry'..."
Mr. Taranto is known for humor, and personally I find him to be sort of a troll - he often says things, very dryly, that he doesn't mean, and I suspect it is purely for the reaction he'll get. But this, it seems to me, is beyond the limits of integrity, or a serious error on his part. While Mr. Dreher does indeed seem to have changed his mind, Mr. Graber clearly has not. In fact, Graber details all of the "coincidences" that must've happened for Prof. Murphy to not have been targeted by the Bush administration. He then delivers the line Mr. Taranto quotes, but it is the penultimate one in his original article. The final is "But that would strike me as the least likely coincidence in the above account."
Clearly, Best of the Web was at best sloppy and is at worst quoting out of context. I happen to agree that Prof. Murphy was not targeted by the government because of his views. But quoting people out of context, with a straight face, either from ignorance or some attempt at humor, is going too far. I hope Mr. Taranto will publish a correction on the morrow.