Little Backlash When Schumer Led Probe of U.S. MuslimsBy Devlin Barrett
Democrats and other critics lined up to lambaste Rep. Peter King’s recent congressional hearing about the radicalization of Muslims in the U.S. The effort, they charged, was really an attempt by the Republican lawmaker to scapegoat a religious minority.
Lost amid the partisan bickering was the fact that King’s hearing mirrored a previous inquiry launched by New York’s most powerful Democrat in congress: Sen. Charles Schumer.
King and Schumer have worked closely on security matters for years, regardless of which party controlled Congress or the White House. In recent weeks, however, King’s focus on security has been more of a solo act. The Long Island Republican, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, pushed forward with the hearing on Muslims despite vociferous complaints that it was unfair.
Democrats called it a witch hunt. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is Muslim, broke down in tears as he testified before King. When it was all over, King called it a productive hearing and said he would have another — probably on Islamic radicalization in U.S. prisons — in the coming months.
That is a topic that has been of keen interest to Schumer. Back in 2003, the New York Democrat led a congressional push for an investigation of what he said was a problem of Islamic radicals infiltrating U.S. prisons and the military.
Schumer pressed for — and got — a congressional hearing on the subject. He argued at the time that a thread of Islamic thought based in Saudi Arabia, called Wahhabism, was reaching dangerously deep into American institutions. Schumer wanted to look at two separate but related areas: the religious chaplains chosen to minister to members of the U.S. military, and the chaplains approved to serve the prison population.
“The Wahhabi presence in the United States is a foreboding one that has potentially harmful and far-reaching consequences for our nation’s mosques, schools, prisons and even our military,’’ Schumer said in testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at the time. “My worry is that by not heeding these signs, we are once again letting those who hate freedom recruit disciples in our country who may potentially do us harm.’’
The criticism of Schumer’s inquiry was far more muted. While a few voices in the Muslim American community spoke out against the hearings, big forces like the Council on American-Islamic Relations stayed out of the fray.
Despite Schumer’s work on a similar issue, his fellow Democratic lawmakers, including some from his own state, angrily object to King’s hearings last week — even drawing comparisons to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous anti-communist crusade in the 1950s.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Brooklyn Democrat, compared last week’s hearing to a reality-television show and said she was appalled by the lack of substance. Radicalism, she argued, also exists in Christianity and Judaism, as well as Islam.
“I know because I represent all three faiths. To see us come to this day where we are pointing fingers at one another — I don’t see the benefit in it,’’ she said.
Through a spokesman, King declined to comment on the similarities between his radicalization hearings and the one where Schumer testified in 2004 2003.
Schumer said in a statement that times had changed since he explored those issues. “When we first raised this, imams were granted chaplain position with virtually no scrutiny. The system has made great strides since then,’’ the senator said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has emerged as one of King’s biggest critics this time around. The group sees a big difference between him and Schumer, despite their similar hearings and concerns.
In 2009, King said that while the majority of Muslims in America are good people, “there’s also no doubt the Muslim leadership does not come forward, does not feel an obligation to cooperate with law enforcement.’’ Corey Saylor, CAIR’s national legislative director, pointed to that remark in arguing that King’s approach “is predicated on anti-Muslim comments and false allegations.’’
In other words, it’s not simply that King’s hearing on Muslim radicalization offended his critics. For those critics, King himself is viewed with a degree of suspicion that Schumer did not face.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/03/16/when-schumer-led-probe-of-u-s-muslims/?mod=google_news_blog
