Dianne Feinstein Slams Peter King's Islamophobic Statements On Suspected Boston Bombers

Impact

Sen. Dianne Feinstein showed Fox News, Rep. Peter King, and anyone watching why she is a stalwart in the Democratic Party on Sunday morning. The California Senator coolly slammed Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) when he insubstantially linked the suspected Boston bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as a larger "threat" coming from the American Muslim community. 

Rep. King likened the "threat" of American Muslims as similar to the Italian Mafia but had not factual evidence to claim the legitimate connection between the Boston bombings and the Tsarnaev brothers. Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Rep. King whether he still believed in an earlier statement by King emphatically pointing blame at American Muslims: "Political correctness be damned, we have to do more effective surveillance inside the Muslim community." This is the key moment that comes as a response to Wallace's question: 

KING: Listen, the threat is coming from within the Muslim community in these cases. In New York. that’s why Commissioner Kelly has 1,000 police officers out in the community. Unfortunately, he gets smeared by the New York Times and the Associated Press, but the fact is we’ve stopped sixteen plots in New York because we know that Al-Qaeda is shifting its tactics … If you know a certain threat is coming from a certain community, that’s where you have to look.

WALLACE: Senator Feinstein, your reaction to this?

FEINSTEIN: That’s exactly where they will look. I don’t think all of this is very helpful. I think the important thing is to get the facts. Let the investigation proceed. The FBI has very good interrogators. They know what they are doing. I believe that they will put a case together that will be very strong. With respect to whether we are doing enough in the Muslim community, I think we should take a look at that, but I don’t think we need to go and develop some real disdain and hatred on television about it.

Watch it here and raise a toast to rational, level-minded coolness. It still exists: