Rep. Peter King's upcoming McCarthyesque hearings on the threat of terrorism from Muslim Americans, even Joe Scarborough says that King is walking a fine line here and Ezra Klein agrees with Rep. Keith Ellison that King needs to back off and is not holding a serious investigation but just trying to raise his public profile by fear mongering. Pat Buchanan of course doesn't think anyone should pre-judge what King is up to.
BUCHANAN: Look the Muslim community is particularly vulnerable to an approach from abroad to try to make... radicalize them and make them enemies of America. That's legitimate. Every politician frankly raises himself up with hearings like that. I think we ought to wait and see what Peter King does.
When asked if he thinks there is a threat of a small group Muslim being radicalized in America as we've seen in parts of Europe, Klein responds that there's no reason to think we're going to see that in the U.S. because the Muslim community here is very different here. Pat Buchanan of course disagrees and uses the example of the Fort Hood shooting and Major Hasan as an example of how Muslims are being radicalized in the United States. And of course MSNBC's favorite bigot Buchanan thinks we shouldn't be demonizing Muslims, as he proceeds to demonize all Muslims.
KLEIN: How does this not demonize Muslims doing this? (crosstalk) You gave one example here and we're talking about an investigation into an entire religious community. We've gone from the one to the whole very quickly and people need to be very careful doing that.
BUCHANAN: Who is most susceptible or vulnerable to the recruitment coming out of the radical Islam? It's American Muslims.
KLEIN: Why do you think they're so vulnerable to it? There are radicals everywhere. (crosstalk) There are neo-Nazis who claim they're Christians? (crosstalk) Is the Christian community in America so deeply vulnerable to neo-Nazism?
BUCHANAN: I think the FBI would be watching those guys if you got Hitler over here broadcasting in the Unites States?
KLEIN: Uh, but we do have those guys there and we've got seen a ton of evidence.
Update: MSNBC's Martin Bashir has a few things to say about Rep. Peter King's hearings, what it's like to be mistaken for a terrorist, and why Rep. King's hearings are something to be endured, like airport patdowns and no-fly lists.
h/t Karoli