Terrorist supporter to head House panel on Homeland Security?
An outspoken supporter of a terrorist organization is positioning himself to be the next chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security.
With the departure of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Cal.), the chairmanship is open. One of the lead contenders is Rep. Peter King (R-NY). While King is better on many issues than at least one of the other prospective chairmen, he has a problem: he is a longtime backer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
King is now calling on the IRA to abolish itself - no act of political courage by any means, and something his friends privately say he wanted to say for many years but never had the decency to do. Columnist Anne Applebaum is crediting King with helping "eliminate the climate of tolerance" among Irish-Americans for the IRA. She is very generous.
Congressman King didn't see the light after the IRA tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher's entire cabinet, or after the FBI busted an IRA plot to smuggle antiaircraft missiles. He broke somewhere between the IRA's hard-core terror days and its more recent activity training the FARC narcoterrorists in Colombia.
That doesn't change the fact that the congressman supported a terrorist organization and collaborated with its illegal fundraising operations in the United States. That alone should disqualify him from the chairmanship. Surely there are more credible - and clean - members of the committee who would make a suitable chairman.
With the departure of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Cal.), the chairmanship is open. One of the lead contenders is Rep. Peter King (R-NY). While King is better on many issues than at least one of the other prospective chairmen, he has a problem: he is a longtime backer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
King is now calling on the IRA to abolish itself - no act of political courage by any means, and something his friends privately say he wanted to say for many years but never had the decency to do. Columnist Anne Applebaum is crediting King with helping "eliminate the climate of tolerance" among Irish-Americans for the IRA. She is very generous.
Congressman King didn't see the light after the IRA tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher's entire cabinet, or after the FBI busted an IRA plot to smuggle antiaircraft missiles. He broke somewhere between the IRA's hard-core terror days and its more recent activity training the FARC narcoterrorists in Colombia.
That doesn't change the fact that the congressman supported a terrorist organization and collaborated with its illegal fundraising operations in the United States. That alone should disqualify him from the chairmanship. Surely there are more credible - and clean - members of the committee who would make a suitable chairman.
posted by JMW at 9:32 AM
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