The Peter King Hearings: Another Republican Fear Tactic

The Republicans are in panic mode.  They don't have a viable candidate for 2012, and the polls are indicating that Obama is unbeatable. So the GOP is doing what it does best: using a little Psy-Op theater to scare the crap out of people and once again, fool them into voting against their own economic interests.

Pew Polls over the past year indicate that while most people feel Islam is a non-violent religion, more and more people are coming to believe the president is a Muslim. So what better way to chip away at his favorables than by changing public opinion about Islam itself?  Why not hold made-for-cable public hearings on the looming threat of Muslim terrorism and home-grown Muslim radicalization? It'll be a circus, and undoubtedly receive all the stenographic mainstream media coverage that politicians have come to expect as their due.

Peter King is a two-bit political hack, a Torquemada wannabe with a dash of Archie Bunker,  and as head of the Homeland Security investigative committee, he is finally getting his moment in the sun.  To get his audience in the mood for the real purpose of the hearings, his cohort Mike Huckabee went on the radio last week and casually mentioned that Obama grew up in Kenya.  He knew it was a lie, of course, but it achieved the objective of casting just a smidgen more doubt on the president's allegiance and bona fides. And it received coverage galore.  Repeat a lie often enough, and the facts don't matter.  Allow the lies to go unchallenged and uncondemned and the truth is no longer important.

The problem the Republicans have with Obama, of course, is that he is not liberal enough. He doesn't attack them enough.  He is way too reasonable and willing to compromise.  Their ideas - cutting the deficit, getting those entitlements on the table, fighting endless wars, kowtowing to Wall Street - are his ideas.  He is really one of them.  He might as well be a Republican.

He is not playing by the rules.  So they have to make stuff up and create problems where none existed before. Investigating American Muslims will stir up the hornet's nest, both here and abroad.  It will take our minds off the real terrorists - the oligarchic cartel that brought down our economy, got rewarded, and continues on its merry way, looting the treasury and destroying what is left of our middle class.

Maybe if President Obama traveled to Wisconsin to show some solidarity with the unions, all the media attention would be deflected away from Peter King's ridiculous, McCarthyesque show hearings. Maybe Obama should give the Republicans something to really sink their teeth into.  Maybe he could turn into a real Democrat.