Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, calls the hearings in Congress by New York Republican Peter King “despicable.” A number of critics have referred to the hearings as a modern-day form of McCarthyism designed to stoke fear against American Muslims. King has refused calls to broaden the hearing to examine right-wing militias or any non-Muslim groups. In this video clip (16:38) from Democracy Now, Potok points out that the real threat of “radicalization” in the U.S. comes from domestic, far-right, white supremacists:

The hearings are already hugely successful in terms of promoting King’s public profile and in stoking the low moral ground of Islamophobia. Despicable indeed.