RECALL THE BOOB

Sen. Joe Lieberman, of all people, chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has just released a panel report concluding that terrorist groups have stepped up their appeals to English-speaking audiences, including those in the United States.

The report, warning that such appeals could foment homegrown terrorism, is urging the U.S. government to do more to isolate and discredit the violent extremist ideology.

Lieberman: "Our committee investigation found that terrorists are skillfully using the Internet to spread their propaganda across national borders and cultural barriers, permitting anyone with the inclination and in Internet connection to immerse themselves in the hate-filled messages of radical Islam, to receive training, and weapons and tactics and to build in cyberspace the kind of group support that once required travel to overseas training camps."

Yeah? And? Exactly what does Lieberman have in mind? Extinguishing more civil liberties? Taking laptops away from American Muslims? Or attacking Iran?

N.B.: there is precisely no data in this report, nothing which would support even the suggestion that this English-language al Qaeda propaganda effort - which, by the way, is not new, so can you think of why this closet neocon would put this report out now? - is likely to have any success at all.

Just as a reminder, the following is Fox News' list of the prosecutions of Muslims in America which have any relationship to the "war on terror":

— In Florida, the retrial of six of the "Liberty City Seven" is coming to a close. The group members, who allegedly plotted to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and swore allegiance to Al Qaeda on a secret FBI surveillance tape, were arrested in June 2006. Their first trial ended in a not-guilty verdict for one defendant and a mistrial for the other six. These were the morons who, if I remember, had no weapons and had never been to Chicago.

— In Washington state, the murder trial has begun for Pakistani-American Naveed Haq, who is accused of opening fire in Seattle's Jewish Federation Building in July 2006, killing one woman and wounding five others. Haq allegedly said he was mad at the Jews and how they are running the country. This is homegrown Islamic terror? This is another nutcase - like the Columbine killers. Any evidence al Qaeda told him to do it?

— In Michigan, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Houssein Zorkot, a Lebanese-born medical student at Wayne State University in Detroit who posted on his Web site in September 2007 that he was launching a personal jihad. He was arrested that same day in a nearby park, wearing camouflage paint and holding a loaded AK-47. He's walking around a park in camo paint with an AK-47??! If this is the best al Qaeda can do, exactly what are we afraid of?

— In South Carolina a trial is set for Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, two University of South Florida students who officials say had pipe bombs in their car when they were caught speeding near the Goose Creek weapons base.

With all due respect, America is full of crazy people, and some of them are killers. It's been like that since the days the Lone Ranger roamed the West. But to use any of this to justify any action relating to terrorism is lunatic.

I am certainly not suggesting that we do not watch those jihadi websites. But calling them an actual threat is pure Republican politics. As is just about anything Lieberman is connected with these days.

Come on, Connecticut, recall this boob.

Tags: aram schefrin, tweet petite, hype, hype vaccine, culture, politics, bullshit, joe lieberman, homegrown terrorism, al qaeda, iran, liberty city seven, naveed haq, hussein zorkot, the lone ranger