"Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks?" That's the question an outraged Joan Rivers asked Sunday after gate agents detained her as she was attempting to board a flight in Costa Rica. The 76-year-old Rivers was booted from her Newark-bound flight when jittery officials deemed her passport (which reads "Joan Rivers AKA Rosenberg") and boarding pass "suspicious." After being left practically penniless, Rivers was eventually shuttled to another flight at the country's main airport by a "sympathetic porter." Was the entertainer's bad experience just fodder for late night jokes, or does it suggest a fundamental problem in airport security practices? (Watch Joan Rivers speak about the incident)
Rivers' detainment was a ridiculous spectacle: "We know you can't make security exceptions for someone just because they're a celebrity," says Dan Amira at New York Magazine, but "come on!" Rivers is "the least likely terrorist ever." Then again, if al Qaeda somehow managed to enlist Rivers — who is the total opposite of the Islamic fundamentalist profile — it'd be nothing short of "diabolically genius."
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