U.S. Representative Peter (Hypocrisy) King, Chairman, Homeland Security Commission

Yep, yep, yep. More of the same out of the District of Columbia that does not change.

Allow me to first define my accusatory term, hypocrisy: the state of promoting or administering virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have or is also guilty of violating (emphasis: "is also guilty of violating").

The definition was taken from here en.wikipedia.org... &, in short, is a definition I agree with & believe would be generally accepted as a correct definition among ATS users as well.

Mr. King's hypocrisy begins--at least this episodic rendition of Mr. King's political antics begins with the following excerpt from Politico ...

Rep. Peter King called for the resignation Friday of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice for initially saying that the deadly Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was spontaneous.

“I believe that this was such a failure of foreign policy messag[ing] and leadership, such a misstatement of facts as was known at the time … for her to go on all of those shows and in effect be our spokesman for the world and be misinforming the American people and our allies and countries around the world, to me, somebody has to pay the price for this,” the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee told CNN.

that can be read in full here www.politico.com...

When I read that I interpreted that Mr. King was not only conveying his opinion about Ambassador Rice's official faux pas but also advocating a standard by which, presumably, he expects of himself. But, you know, like some--maybe many--of you on ATS my sense of distrust toward government officials has increased with time. I will go even further and admit that in the not-so-distant past I afforded government officials the benefit of the doubt (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!). Now, however, I tend to think in reverse & afford government officials the benefit of my doubt: Mr. King's soft indignation of Ambassador Rice's job performance is an amusing reminder of such doubt.

Enter an article written by Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, dtd. 10 March 2011, titled "Peter King's claim about radical Muslim imams: Is it true?"

Some awkward snippets ...

King ... well known for an assertion he once made that "80 to 85 percent" of the mosques in the United States are controlled by radical imams.

King now dismisses the comment as inconsequential, saying in an interview that he has no idea if the estimate is correct.

This all started with a State Department forum in early 1999 on Islamic extremism that attracted virtually no media attention. That is, until a few months later, when virtually every major Muslim organization in the United States issued a joint statement condemning the remarks by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani as "unsubstantiated allegations that could have a profoundly negative impact on ordinary American Muslims."

Kabbani offered no evidence to support this assertion and has provided little evidence since.

In the interview, King said he did not rely just on Kabbani's statement but also on testimony before a Senate panel in 2003 by Stephen Schwartz, a Muslim convert who at the time was affiliated with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Schwartz did not identify these community leaders, though before this appearance he had previously attributed this estimate to Kabbani's statement at the State Department.

that can be read in full here voices.washingtonpost.com...

And it all just reminds me so much of this theme ...



To be fair to Mr. King I will suggest that you read the Washington Times piece to better contextualize the snippets I chose to post. If nothing else I think the Wash. Times piece demonstrates, in conjuction with Mr. King's most recent comments, the six degrees of separation which exists between politics and hypocrisy.