Inside the Beltway By John McCaslin
Suspicious stash
Erstwhile Washington political pollster Frank Luntz got a rude awakening while traversing the globe to conduct focus groups on the Iraqi war.
Mr. Luntz's focus sessions on behalf of NBC in Egypt, the West Bank and Israel went off without a hitch, but the pollster wasn't so lucky in Turkey, where he suddenly found himself "embedded" with antiwar demonstrators.
So embedded that the mob of Istanbul protesters gladly handed the hapless pollster an assortment of anti-American placards, including one poster that read "Dump Bush, Not Bombs."
Protesting, er, polling completed, Mr. Luntz decided he would display the anti-American mementos that same evening upon arrival in Israel, during his scheduled appearance on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews.
Except that when Mr. Luntz, whose wardrobe more often resembles a protester than a pollster, tried to carry his political stash through the Istanbul airport, more than a dozen police and security officials swarmed over him.
They not only seized his passport and anti-American materials, they detained him long enough to cause him to miss his flight.
Mr. Luntz obviously missed the lesson that every American visiting Turkey should have learned from the movie "Midnight Express."