Rep. Peter King and Imus Find Common Ground, then Lose It

Just prior to engaging in an interview rife with tension, Imus played a clip of Rep. Peter King wailing on the New York Times for having no “intellectual honesty” because it compared last week’s attacks in Norway to potential attacks in the U.S.
 
“There is no equivalency in the threat to our homeland from a deranged gunman and the international apparatus of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, such as Al-Shabaab,” King said yesterday during the third round of hearings he held on the radicalization of Muslim Americans.
 
Though he had explained to Imus (twice) in previous appearances the purpose of holding these hearings, King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, reiterated that he is trying to educate the public about the shifting battleground in the War on Terror to countries like Yemen and Somalia, where Al-Shabaab is recruiting Muslim Americans to launch attacks on the U.S.
 
When Imus expressed doubt that such hearings were necessary, King became predictably enraged. “Maybe you claim you were an expert, and you knew what Al-Shabaab was doing, and you knew about the mosques in Minnesota, and you knew about how the leaders of Al-Shabaab are meeting with leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and how, before he died, Bin Laden was focusing on using Al-Shabaab to attack the United States,” King said. “But not everyone is as brilliant as Don Imus, so that’s why I’m trying to bring this out.”
 
Imus noted King’s bravery in attacking him from afar, “when you’re not here in the studio where I can get my hands around your fat neck.” To be fair, Imus himself leveled this threat from nearly 2,000 miles away in New Mexico.
 
The two frequent adversaries found common ground, and fast, on the decision made Tuesday that cancer-stricken 9/11 first responders would not be covered by the 9/11 Zadroga Health and Compensation Act that King worked feverishly to pass last year.
 
“I know, unfortunately, so many people who were down in that pit, who worked there—people in the prime of life, never sick before—now coming down with the rarest form of blood disorders and cancers,” said King, whose Long Island district includes many families affected by 9/11.
 
Like Deirdre Imus, King believes the burden should be on the government to prove there is no connection between toxins inhaled at Ground Zero and subsequent cancer diagnoses in first responders. 
 
Impressed by his guest’s rational approach, Imus wondered if he was similarly logical on the debt ceiling issue, which is fast approaching crisis territory. “I’m supporting John Boehner’s bill because it will have a total of $2.7 trillion in real cuts,” King said, then commented that while Harry Reid’s bill is “not bad,” it has “phantom” cuts. “One trillion of their cuts are money he’s assuming we’re not going to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
 
King chided President Obama for never putting his own plan on the table regarding the debt, but Imus observed, “He has stuff to do,” then wondered if King has heard anything from Anthony Weiner, his date for last year’s State of the Union address.
 
“I hung out with him once to show what a good human being I am,” King told Imus, then observed, “Some of the stuff he was doing reminded me of you.”
 
And we’re done.
 
-Julie Kanfer