When I slammed Representative Jim McDermott (D-7) yesterday for voting against food aid reform, I noted that his vote was especially disheartening because he's excellent on many issues. Here's a great example!

McDermott has just written a letter to the FBI protesting the agency's ads on Seattle-area Metro buses, which offer "up to $25 million" rewards if you "stop a terrorist." The ads (as seen above in a photo attached to McDermott's letter) are little more than a line up of all-brown faces and foreign-sounding names. Here's a larger, clearer version.

“Though civilian vigilance is important to the fight against terror, stereotypes of what a terrorist looks like—or who they worship—are not only wrong, they make us blind to threats that fall outside our limited notions,” McDermott writes. “From the ‘Army of God’ attacking abortion clinics to Eric Rudolph’s anti-gay motivated bombings, it is foolish to believe that terrorism only comes from one religion or one color of people.” He notes that the ads could encourage racial hate crimes. Nice work, FBI!

The full letter can be read on McDermott's website. The Seattle FBI office phone operator twice transferred me to people who are out of the office when I asked for comment.