Last year, Representative Peter King (R-NY) launched a controversial series of committee hearings on the dangers of "radicalization" within the Muslim-American community. Religious and civil liberty organizations including the Baptist Joint Committee condemned the idea for reinforcing harmful, false stereotypes and for targeting a specific religious community. Yesterday, the committee held yet another - this with much less fanfare - to discuss "The American Muslim Response to Hearings on Radicalization within their Community."

First, just as an aside, is there really so little to do in Homeland Security that they're down to holding hearings about their favorite hearings?

But if you really want to know what this latest hearing was all about, check out this snippet from Chairman King's opening statement (pdf).

[F]rom the moment I announced the hearings, I was attacked by politically correct special interests and their unthinking allies in the media led by the New York Times. More than 1000 protestors came out in the rain to rally against me in Times Square the Sunday before the first hearing....

Of course, none of the nightmare scenarios anticipated by the media ever occurred. No religious war broke out. Not one bigoted word was uttered during the four investigative hearings we held – including the first ever joint hearing with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He also made this astonishing claim about the Muslim-American community: "...the reality is that the Islamist terrorist threat comes from that community." Really? Muslim-Americans are the birthplace of the Islamist terrorist threat?

But, congratulations I guess, Rep. King. Your leadership - while vilifying an entire American religious community - did manage not to launch a religious war. Hooray.

You can watch video of the proceedings at the Commitee's website here.