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Daniel Squadron a free-lance writer wrote a short piece for today's New York Times. It was how at some airports like in Miami or New York, elite airline customers are being given preferential treatment when it comes to lines for the security checkpoints. Here is the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/opinion/01squadron.html

I'm just going to highlight the end. Mr. Squadron is very opposed to this preferential treatment.

President Bush should insist that the agency start treating all the people that it was created to protect equally. The agency should take over boarding pass and identification screening in all airports and move passengers through security lines without regard to ticket class or airline club membership.

Increased security protects us all and the inconvenience it requires is a trial we all must share. No one should be able to buy his way out of it.

First I got to wonder how much Mr. Squadron really flies? I was a Gold/Premium Frequent Flyer with Northwest Airlines from 1997 to 2001. I didn't pay more to become an elite customer, what I did was fly somewhere between 60,000 and 125,000 miles each of those years. That's how I got premium class service. The vast majority of my flying was coach fares because I was paying for this travel no one else.

I really think President Bush has better things to do than this kind of minutaie. Also I don't know what world Mr. Squadron lives in, but people for a wide assortment of reasons get treated differently than others. There is no such thing as a classless society, even in communist countries who claimed otherwise. There was the ruling elite and everyone else.

I don't know if I'm going to miss this op-ed whining that NYT publishes all too often. In a few months they plan on charging non-subscribers if they want to read NYT editorials or their columnists. Sorry I won't be paying out $50 a year to feel nauseated by the writings of Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich.(Though I'll miss David Brooks, John Tierney and the occasional Nicholas Kristoff piece)