Nationals Hat A Terrorist Symbol Now

Would you associate this logo with evil? With soul-crushing sorrow, and with everything that is bad and wrong in the world? Of course you would. But terrorism?

Tyler Allard, an aide to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), made the mistake of wearing that green Nationals cap on a trip through Israel. Well, on a more basic level, wearing a Nationals cap anywhere isn't the best idea. But Allard's timing was especially bad.

An Israeli airport security guard pointed to the hat with the curly W team logo and demanded with a tone of disgust, "Why do you wear that?"

"Good question," his father, former longtime Senate aide Nick Allard, replied. "They are hopeless. They desperately need relief. You never know when they will hit, and because their defense is so bad, they suffer more than they can dish out. It's not rational and I can't explain why, but we are loyal and we love them." The more he talked, the more upset the security folks became, Nick Allard reports. Their luggage was checked and rechecked, and they were quizzed by security.

When they were finally cleared to board, Allard wrote in an e-mail, the head of the security detail said: "We do not appreciate your Hamas headgear." Green apparently is a Palestinian "color," Allard speculated, and the vaguely Arabic Nats logo might have been mistaken for an extremist emblem.

Forsaken young men with no future, living in a black hole of poverty who turn to the local organization out of despair? Gaza fits the bill as well as DC.

GOP Dilemma: Who's on First? [WaPo]