In December Congressman Peter King (R-NY) made serious headlines announcing his intent to call hearings in the House Committee on Homeland Security on the current state of our terrorist threat preparedness, specifically "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response."
Remember December? Those were heady days for the GOP. The world was their oyster. They had a mandate to take on any damn thing they wanted. Repeal ObamaCare! Cut Cut Cut! Commence the investigations!
December's long gone - the GOP are standing so far out in right field that they are in serious danger pf finding themselves over the wall.
So how about those hearings on the American Muslim community? Still feeling great about picking out a specific American minority group and holding a hearing into just how dangerous they are? This is the week we find out.
Thursday will be the King hearings (and I will not call them anything else - he gets to own this one forever, come what may) into the American Muslim community.
You and I have an obligation as citizens to pay attention.
If Peter King and the GOP are bound and determined to create an environment of anxiety and accusation for our Muslim friends and neighbors, we cannot stand by and allow it. Our history is filled with times when those in power chose to prey upon the fears of middle America, deciding who to use as their target for ignorant hysteria and controlling how the information got out.
Today we have a media machine designed to support the worst demagoguery by amplifying and repeating the worst talking points, nearly unchallenged.
Here's the rundown of what you need to know as we head into the week:
Hearing schedule: Thurs 3/10/11 9:30am ET
Who will be called?
Well that's a fine question -- and the answer is, we really don't know. A few names have been shared, but King has been reticent to share the list of those scheduled to testify.
Here's who we do know of:
Family of young men recruited into terrorist training and action:
Two of the witnesses scheduled to testify Thursday are relatives of men who were radicalized and turned to terrorism. One is the uncle of a Somali man from Minneapolis -- Burhan Hassan -- who left the country in December 2008 to join a terror group in Somalia. The family believes Hassan was killed and buried in Somalia.
Another witness is the father of Carlos Bledsoe, who prosecutors say shot and killed a soldier at a military recruiting center in Arkansas in 2009. Bledsoe grew up in the Memphis, Tenn., area, converted to Muslim and changed his name to Abdulhakim Muhammad.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser Republican, Navy Veteran, doctor from Scottsdale, Arizona. Jasser runs the non-profit American Islamic Forum for Democracy and is a frequent guest of conservative groups.
Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) the first practicing Muslim elected to Congress. Congressman Ellison fully intends to represent the mainstream American Muslim community, making it clear they have been average, typical Americans, contributing significantly to law-enforcement efforts to identify and stop threats.
Is it possible that Peter King means to give the American Muslim community an opportunity to stand before their country and demonstrate that they are exactly like the rest of us - and are doing their part to fight terrorism? Or to put fear of Islamic terror into context alongside say neo-Nazis, anti-tax militants, and other homegrown non-Islamic threats? I suppose anything is possible. Congressman King could have a whole host of invited guests who will surprise us with their depth of knowledge and clarity of perspective. The best clue is in King's public comments Sunday:
Defending himself against criticism that he is scapegoating a religious community and ignoring threats from other extremists, King said that U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. "is not saying he's staying awake at night because of what's coming from anti-abortion demonstrators or coming from environmental extremists or from Neo-Nazis. It's the radicalization right now in the Muslim community."
That doesn't sound like the PR of a man who wants to be seen as having a rational and fair view of our domestic terror threat realities. It sounds like a man who knows what scares him and wants you scared too. We've seen that kind of man before.