KING HAS BACKBONE – AT 10:27 A.M. ET:  Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, has withstood the predictable cries of "racist," and is pursuing his investigation into the radicalization of American Muslims.  From WaPo:

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, thinks Muslim Americans are being radicalized in U.S. prisons, and he’s promised a “deliberate and thoughtful examination of the issue” during a hearing on Wednesday.

To which detractors say: impossible.

As was the case with his March hearing on the radicalization of Muslim Americans, the detractors are accusing the congressman of scare-mongering. They see this week’s hearing as being rooted in no more than Islamophobia.

"Islamophobia" is the big word on the political left these days.  If you want to look into guys who wear suicide belts, you're "Islamophobic." 

But as King told Fox News on Monday, there’s “absolutely nothing wrong” with inmates converting to Islam. “The problem,” he said, “is when you get radical Muslims. You get radical chaplains who then radicalize them and turn them toward terrorism or turn them toward violence.”

King is hardly the first person to voice of concern about the radicalization of Muslims in American prisons. FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee six years ago that prisons were “fertile ground” for Islamic extremists. Even before that, in 2003, Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democrat of New York, expressed concern that U.S. inmates were being recruited by followers of the ultraconservative brand of Islam known as Wahhabism.

But for critics, the issue is that the radicalization of American Muslim inmates should not be seen apart from the radicalization of inmates by other groups. And experts note that in U.S. prisons, for generations, there’s been plenty of radicalization to go around, from the Aryan Brotherhood to the Latin Kings to the Black Liberation Army.

That's a red herring.  These other groups require investigation as well.  But that should not deter Peter King.  Radicalization of Muslims is of a different order, in that it involves possible linkages with foreign groups and foreign nations, and often involves extreme plots.

King is to be commended over the way he's stood up to the abuse, and the usual leftist vocabulary.  Since 9/11 he has been one of the stalwarts in the fight against terrorism. 

June 15, 2011