Congressman Defends Hearing on Radical Islam
The Republican lawmaker who convened a much-anticipated hearing on the problem of radicalization among American Muslims — lambasted by critics as a revival of McCarthyism — opened the session on Thursday by vowing to continue with his inquiry, saying that “to back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness.”
The lawmaker, Representative Peter T. King, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and represents parts of Long Island, said there was “nothing radical or un-American” in the hearings.
“Indeed, Congressional investigation of Muslim American radicalization is the logical response to the repeated and urgent warnings which the Obama administration has been making in recent months,” he said in his opening statement.