King of the Hill

Modern TV fans will recall the animated comedy in which the lead character is a relatively clueless but goodhearted redneck embattled by children and wife, and winds up taking on misguided adventures to try to break out of his mediocrity. That character is now being displaced by Rep. Peter King of New York. Pete’s newest adventure to rise above the crowd is even more misguided and not so good hearted. Rep. King wants to anoint himself as the new scourge of all things un-American and “Inquisitor in Chief” of the USA polity.

Not content to let the shameful past lie buried, after the country has tried to live down the era of HUAC and the tyranny of Sen. Joe McCarthy, King now wants to carry out a similar campaign against Muslims. Keep in mind that we are NOT talking about targeting Al Qaida or Taliban camps in the Middle East, we are talking about US citizens who happen to be Muslim. King apparently believes that the most pressing issues that face the nation include the threat of law abiding US citizens who do not look like King and who may worship a different religion. If King has his way, every single Allah fearing Muslim in the US will be investigated, brought before his hearing tribunal and forced to testify in blood as to their unswerving loyalty to Uncle Sam. In addition, they will undoubtedly have to testify under oath that they do not know anybody, who has ever known anybody, who has ever thought about supporting any Islamic cause.

It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to face them again and again. Maybe it is another example of the failure of our educational system. But this circus is not just misguided, it threatens to shred any remaining coherence of what had been the fabric holding together some semblance of common ground for the American people. Public scapegoating for political gain is one of the worst forms of chicanery. It is dishonest, mean spirited and cynical. It seeks to capitalize on a period in which the public is under great stress and feed that fear and encourage hatred, pitting US citizens against each other. That is the lesson of McCarthyism.

We can only hope that someone in the House of Representatives will have the courage shone by Joe Welch, Head Counsel to the US Army, who confronted McCarthy publicly and asked:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…. Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

We can only hope that someone will stand up to King and similarly confront his antics. We can also only hope that this will happen before King is able to inflict similar cruelty and injustice to the disgraceful behavior of McCarthy.