Excerpt:
Representative Peter King, Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, will hold hearings this Thursday on "Radicalization of Muslim Americans." While hearings on the threat of domestic terrorist attacks are important, regrettably King's long standing anti-Muslim track record and the choice of the hearings title, "Radicalization of Muslim Americans," have led many to fear the emergence of a successor to Senator Joseph McCarthy and a new neo-McCarthyism.
Peter King is an ideologue who for many years has uncritically hounded Muslim Americans, brush-stroking the Muslim American community with a series of unsubstantiated accusations. He sees no reason to let facts or evidence get in the way.
In 2004, King claimed in an interview with Sean Hannity that "no American Muslim leaders are cooperating in the war on terror," and that "80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists." And he staunchly insisted, without providing any data or citing any government reports: "I'll stand by that number of 85 percent. This is an enemy living amongst us."