Why Wasn’t the Kid Who Nibbled His Pop Tart into a Gun Shape Invited to the White House?

What I want to know is: Why wasn't Josh Welch invited to the White House?

Josh was the 7-year-old second-grader suspended from his school in a Baltimore suburb in 2013 for nibbling a Pop Tart into what school officials said looked like a gun. And when his parents tried to get the two-day suspension expunged from the boy's record, it was no-go.

Reaction from the White House? Crickets, and plenty of them.

Contrast Josh's fate to that of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old who brought a homemade digital clock to his school in Irving, Texas, this week that school officials said looked like a bomb. His teacher called the police, who led Ahmed out of the school in handcuffs. He also suffered a two-day suspension from school.

Reaction from the White House? A tweet from President Obama himself, plus an invitation for Ahmed to celebrate Astronomy Night at the White House next month.

So–two cases of silly school officials enforcing an even sillier "zero tolerance" policy regarding any object that looks conceivably like a weapon. It was wrong to arrest Ahmed over a science project, and just as wrong to punish a second-grader over a pastry.

But there's a difference: the difference between the names "Ahmed Mohamed" and "Josh Welch." Also the difference between Maryland, a liberal, Democratic-leaning state and Texas, a conservative, Republican-leaning state. Ahmed's arrest delivered an outrage two-fer to the bien-pensants of the political establishment and the media: a chance to scream "Islamophobia!" plus tut-tut the backward rubes of the Lone Star State.

And was there ever outrage!

Outrage over the incident — with many saying the student was profiled because he's Muslim — spread on social media as #IStandWithAhmed started trending worldwide on Twitter with more than 100,000 tweets Tuesday morning. The school's Facebook page is roiling with sharp criticism of the way the teen was treated, and the hashtag #engineersforahmed is gaining popularity.

And then we have CNN pundit Sally Kohn:

Hey right wing, your fear-mongering anti-Muslim rhetoric got a kid arrested for a science project. Hope you're happy.

And Hillary Clinton, not to be outdone by Obama:

Assumptions and fear don't keep us safe—they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building.

Goes to show what a difference a name makes–if your name is one that politicians and pundits can make hay over.