It’s great to see members of Congress helping with our public diplomacy efforts in the Muslim world (via John Pitney):

New York Rep. Peter King, a prominent House Republican, said there are “too many mosques in this country” in a recent interview with Politico.

“There are too many people sympathetic to radical Islam,” King said. “We should be looking at them more carefully and finding out how we can infiltrate them.”

King is the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. And as an outspoken advocate of strong anti-terror measures, he has been unafraid to ruffle some feathers in his drive to protect the homeland.

When asked to clarify his statement, King did not revise his answer, saying “I think there has been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community.”

After King claimed his statement had been taken out of context, Politico posted the video (it wasn’t):

Sadly, even King’s comment isn’t as bad as Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) saying that if a nuclear attack on the US was “the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites.”

Shouldn’t the public diplomacy staff in the administration be publicly denouncing these sorts of comments in forums like Al Jazeera? It seems more important than, say, naming Cal Ripken as a public diplomacy envoy.