King & the Radicals
By Jeffrey Page
Peter King, basking in the warmth of the House Republican majority that gave him the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, has chosen to investigate Islam in America. Wait. Not Islam, per se, but the extent to which Muslims here in the United States have been radicalized. Whatever that means.
What King, as chairman, has chosen not to investigate, or even talk about as a rank-and-file member of the House, is the extent to which the Republican party itself has been radicalized.
Item: Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, would have you believe that state workers got the wages and fringe benefits they enjoy by pointing a gun at the heads of previous governors. Actually, they got their pay through collective bargaining. You know, two sides negotiating a deal each could live with. Walker’s solution, with Wisconsin facing a $3 billion deficit? End collective bargaining with public sector unions. Walker knows and I know, and you know and everybody with a brain knows that an end to collective bargaining is the end of public unions. And that’s not a radical position? Ending the process that gave workers a chance to join the middle class?
Item: The leadership of the Republican party is afraid to confront some of its more radicalized members and inform them that President Obama was born in the United States and that to continue the “birther” nonsense – that he really came from Kenya or some distant planet – makes the GOP look like a bunch of fools. Radical fools, but fools nonetheless.
Item: Chairman King, who has grandly titled his hearings “The Extent of Radicalization of the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response” has thus far declined to call for hearings titled “The Extent of Radicalization of the Westboro Baptist Church Community and That Community’s Response.” Westboro of course is the church in Topeka, Kan. that sends its people around the country to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their incredible reasoning: Homosexuality is a sin; America tolerates homosexuality; soldiers defend America; therefore the dead soldiers were killed defending homosexuality. This, they contend, allows them to display such signs as “God Hates Fags.” And King is bent out of shape about Muslims.
Item: King ought to check in with the Tea Party and see who’s been radicalizing this group that scares the hell out of the GOP every time mainstream Republicans do something the Tea Party finds annoying. It was at a Tea Party forum on health care a couple of years ago in Greenwood Lake when a man opposed to national health care declared: “I resent the administration’s comparing me to a brown shirt or a Nazi” when in fact no one in President Obama’s administration had said any such thing. I have seen signs at these rallies showing Obama and a lion with the wording “African Lion? Or Lyin’ African?” And I have seen the signs showing Obama with the racist message “Monkey See, Monkey Spend.” What I have not seen is King mouthing any degree of concern over these displays of radicalization.
Item: Sarah Palin runs around the country mouthing big ideas about this issue or that but when you listen, you get a creepy feeling that she’s reciting a GOP nursery rhyme. Yet there are elements in the Republican party that see her as a serious contender for the presidential nomination next year. How radical is that? A genuine know-nothing thinking about running America.
Item: King might want to investigate his own radicalism. The Times on Wednesday ran a fascinating story in which it quoted King in his 1985 defense of the Irish Republican Army. “If civilians are killed in an [I.R.A.] attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable,” he said, “but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”
King should learn that he doesn’t encounter radicalism only on the left. It’s out there among every group – such as his.
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Jeffrey Page
March 10th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Jeff,
I feel your angst. And what is to be said of the other members of the Homeland Security Committee? Are they not accomplices to King’s McCarthyist tactics?
March 10th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Oh, you’re good. Very good. And, there’s also the pro lifers!
March 11th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Yes, Yes, Yes!!!! I second every motion. Don’t forget the school dsitricts that create anti-bullying laws but want to leave out gays from the list of those who are bullied. They don’t want to be told that they can’t make life miserable for gay kids – or kids who are perceived to be gay. After all, if you include gays, someone might decide he wants to be gay too!!!! We don’t want our kids exposed to that, now do we???
March 17th, 2011 at 10:27 am
It appears that you don’t understand security challenges that our nation faces. You connect too many separate concepts together to form an opinion that has little basis in logic. Being supportive of trade union activity, or not, has nothing to do with Islamist radicals shooting innocent Americans.
March 17th, 2011 at 11:37 am
It was Congressman King who raised the danger to America from what he perceives to be the radicalization of Islam. I’m asking about the danger to America from what I perceive to be the radicalization of other groups and individuals mentioned in that column — groups and individuals who may pose a danger but who seem safely removed from King’s microscope.
March 20th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Congressman King has spoken many times about various security concerns from a wide range of hostile forces. Do you think that radical Islamist groups that seek to do America harm do not exist? It is important that no ethnic, religious or racial group of Americans be singled out for unfair treatment. We are all entitled to our Constitutional equal protection rights. It is also vitally important that we don’t slip into such politically correct thinking that inescapable facts are ignored.
March 23rd, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Really, Jeff? Time to lighten this conversation up with a little theatre of the absurd…
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-tea-party-signs.htm?PS=628%3A32&x