Rep. Peter King is not going to be calling on the same exact cast we saw in August during the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy, but Ben Smith and Byron Tau report he may be calling on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who wrote that the proposed Islamic community center's presence in downtown NY would "weaken us against the very real threat of Islamist radicalization."
These two would be appropriate if King were putting together a panel discussion on political Islam. Hirsi Ali is one of Islam's most high-profile critics -- Jasser is of significantly lower prominence and is mostly known for being a Muslim who can reliably echo conservative criticisms of Muslims. As witnesses for a hearing on the problem of domestic radicalization and law enforcement, they seem somewhat out of place, unless one assumes that the hearings are less about law enforcement or even terrorism but rather fostering the perception that Islam and Muslim Americans are a threat to American democracy.
Picking Hirsi Ali and Jasser is shrewd if obvious identity politics on King's part. If he called Steve Emerson or Robert Spencer, it would be easier for his critics to paint the hearings as an Islamophobic witch hunt. Instead he's picked two "insiders" who can say everything King wants said about Islam while dodging accusations of religious bigotry. As Matt Duss points out, there are few things Spencer or Emerson has said about Islam that Hirsi Ali hasn't, but given her compelling personal story and background it's easy to see why King would believe that her declarations that "America is at war with Islam" provide much better optics. The same is true of Jasser, who believes that 80 percent of mosques are radicalized and actively trying to impose Taliban-style Sharia law in the U.S.
This is a bit like when Sean Hannity brings on Jesse Lee Peterson to tell his audience that black people are the "real racists," except that Peterson comes across as obtuse and Hirsi Ali is obviously very smart. But it's the same sort of crude identity politics, where conservatives air controversial views through minority spokespeople with the belief that this somehow makes them more defensible.
