Excerpt:
That Thursday's congressional hearings on Islamic radicalization have provoked a greater outcry from the American Muslim community than any number of atrocities committed in their religion's name ironically hints at the grounds for the probe.
On Sunday, several hundred demonstrators poured into Times Square, where Faisal Shahzad's attempt to curtail the civil liberties of Americans sparked no such assembled outrage, to protest Congressman Peter King's hearings. "To single out Muslim-Americans as the source of homegrown terrorism," Rabbi Marc Schneier told those gathered, "and not examine all forms of violence motivated by extremist belief—that, my friends, is an injustice."
On MSNBC, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, one of two Muslims in Congress, called the Homeland Security Committee's inquest "a disturbing use of a Congressional hearing." On Wednesday, the ACLU's Laura Murphy warned at Politico that the inquiry "calls to mind the McCarthy hearings." "Notice that the hearing is solely about Muslims," the New York Times editorialized Monday. "It might be perfectly legitimate for the Homeland Security Committee to investigate violent radicalism in America among a wide variety of groups, but that doesn't seem to be Mr. King's real interest."