Republican Rep. Peter King, apparently channeling the same demons that possess Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), unleashed some harsh words towards the American Muslim community in a recent interview:
Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully. We should be finding out how we can infiltrate. […]I think there’s been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community. And it’s a real threat here in this country.
You can watch the interview yourself over at YouTube. As ThinkProgress notes, this is hardly the first time that King has had harsh words for Muslim-Americans.
Republicans benefited from a 9/11 bounce in King’s district in 2004, when Bush carried the Long Island-based 3rd District by 5 points after losing by 8 to Gore four years earlier. His normally lofty re-election margins took a hit last year, when he dispatched late-starting challenger Dave Mejias by a 56%-44% margin. If, however, you believe that the Democratic presidential nominee will rebound to Gore’s 2000 margin (or better), then targeting King for defeat could be worthwhile.
Is sadly full of people who think the same way, but it’s also populated with a diverse population in some parts, which include American Muslims who are not of the radical kind. Still, many in this district, Republican or not, have a strong anti-Muslim bias.
A Democrat will carry this district only if the Republican candidate isn’t Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani would win King’s district hands down. Giuliani may even carry the other Long Island districts too. He’s well liked on Long Island, even if not in the city.
He’s going to be hard to defeat, there aren’t many other big name Democrats in this district outside of Meijias. It may take redistricting to get him out.
Not enough Muslims are cooperating in closing their places of worship? Seriously?
With all due respect to my fellow democrats, or better put, fellow centrists, King has some very valid points, he just worded these points badly.
First, in relation to the number of muslims in the USA, there ARE too many mosques. Were we to build synagogues at the same ratio as they mosques to muslims, our cities would be rammed full of synagogues.
Second, radical islamic thought is being taught all over the place, especially in mosques that claim to be “moderate”. Also in muslim schools that are being funded by taxpayer money. Perverse.
Third, the muslim community has done a piss poor job of fighting against terrorism and above all else, condemning islamofascists, of which there are now -literally – millions. The islamic community of america has had 6 years to show us that they are patriotic, law-abiding citizens who cherish the same values that our founding fathers put forth, and instead, this community has squandered it’s chance, complained at every turn about discrimination and sent it’s attack dog named CAIR (an unindicted co-conspirator in a number of terrorism trials now) out to silence every mouth that disagrees with islam. The case of the so-called “flying imams” is probably the best example of this type of perversion to date.
In Germany, the problem has gotten so bad that the central government has been training and sending arabic speaking spies into the mosques in order to record the sermons, which are so incredibly filled with hate and recommendations for murder of innocents, all of which is clearly laid out in the Koran for all to read, BTW. You don’t even need to take my word for it. Buy an english translation of the Koran and read it for yourself.
Both major political parties are essentially big tents. The DEM tent is bigger and somewhat more inclusive. But IMHO there is no place under either tent for radical islam. And if there were truly so many “moderate” muslims out there, they would have raised their voices a long time ago.
Their silence is, frankly, deafening.
So, the DEMS will do themselves a world of good into avoiding the trap of thinking that the islamic community is with us on any issue dealing with freedom of the human spirit and liberty of democratic political structures. Were they to have their way, there would already be a caliphate in place of our republic based on representative democracy in the USA. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Though I am no King fan and would also like to see a DEM in his seat, you are attacking him for the wrong reasons here. Much better would be for a DEM to come out just as strongly and ask the islamic community in NY-03 why it has sat on it’s ass the last 6 years. Why it is that the islamic community in NY-03 has not put out even one single FATWAH against Osama bin Laden. Why in the last poll, put out by CAIR itself, 26% (26%!!!!!) of all young muslims in the USA think that suicide attacks are justified, a poll taken in such a free and open land where the poll number in this case should have been ZERO! This is just disgusting and I will be damned, as a democrat, to allow this extremist, islamofascist train of thought to sneak into this great party.
I have seen enough ugly anti-semitic jew haters sneaking into anti-war demonstrations under the cloak of “peace” in order to know that these people are not the democratic party nor do they share our platform. The best way to destroy the democratic party is to let this junk in.
You wanna win NY-03 in 2008? Then pick another topic. King is right on this one.
is quite the character. This is a moderate suburban district, and he’s really gone off the deep end. Here’s a video I made:
I blog about King at nastyletters.blogspot.com . Check it out if so inclined. This is a winnable district that the netroots could push over the edge.
It is good to disagree with people, because how else will we learn?
But the style of disagreeing can have an effect, and the style by a certain poster here sucked.
Tone it down folks..