Peter King hates Muslims

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(As I've stressed before, no, not that Peter King, that Peter King -- who seems to call himelf "Pete," perhaps to distinguish himself from the more famous other Peter King. Obviously.)

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Think Progress:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has promised to launch a series of investigations of Muslim Americans beginning in February. "I've made it clear that I'll focus the committee on counterterrorism and hold hearings on a wide range of issues, including radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism," he told Newsday. King has repeatedly said that he only wants to single out "Islamic terrorism" in his hearings on domestic security, and has even claimed that there are "too many mosques in this country."

This is the all-too-typical scapegoating of the "enemy" Other you find among so many Republicans these days. If it isn't Mexican immigrants who are targeted, it's Muslims, just as it used to be Jews and blacks and anyone else who weren't "American" enough.

Just think back to the whole Park51 brouhaha last year, with conservatives like Newt Gingrich whipping up an anti-Muslim frenzy. (Remember, the proposed Ground Zero mosque that was neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque?) What's different now is that the like of Pete King have their newfound perches of power to drive their witch hunts.

Read the whole TP post. What's blatantly clear to anyone who hasn't succumbed to anti-Muslim bigotry and who actually pays attention to reality is that King's anti-Muslim focus is not just ugly but misguided, with most American Muslims hardly radical, or becoming radicalized, at all. (To me, the much greater threat to America is right-wing Christianist terrorism, as we saw in Oklahoma City.) This is precisely the opposite of what Bush, to his credit, said immediately after 9/11, when he reached out to American Muslims and stressed that they were decidedly not the enemy.

And I must note, as I blogged about a year ago, that King hardly has a great record on terrorism, or at least opposing it, as he was an ardent supporter of the IRA, the mass-murdering terrorist organization that plagued Northern Ireland for so long, from 1969 to 1997.

Of course, those were Irish terrorists, who are apparently fine, while King is now targeting not just Islamic terrorists but Muslim American generally. (Why not go after Christian militias and other right-wing groups?) And all because... why? Because he hates Muslims? Because they're the new Other? Because manufacturing a Muslim "threat" to America will allow him and his right-wing thugs to advance their authoritarian national security agenda? Because he's just a stupid bigot?

Whatever the case, this is apparently (and unsurprisingly) what happens when you give Republicans a gavel, and especially when you give "America's Worst Congressman" the power to wage his own personal jihad, if you will, against American citizens.