Exercising Political Correctness

Yesterday on Fox Friends, Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson were wondering if it was time for the military to start treating Muslim-American soldiers as potential terrorists simply because they are Muslims.

Kilmeade:

Do you think it’s time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers — anybody enlisted? Because if I'm going to be in a foxhole, if I'm gonna be stuck in an outpost, I've gotta know the guy next to me is not gonna wanna kill me.

Carlson:

I want to ask this question another way. Could it be that the military, because our society -- let's face it, our society has become very politically correct -- could it be that the military was also exercising political correctness, even though [Major Hasan] had a poor performance report, and even though he spoke openly about being a radical Muslim, and had those supposed postings online, could it be that the military was exercising political correctness in not approaching him as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim? link

Did the people at Fox News call for special debriefings of all Christian soldiers of European descent to prove they were not terrorists after Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City? Well not so much. Not only did they not think that terrorist acts by white Christians should prompt special suspicion of all white Christians as potential terrorists but when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report to law enforcement warning of the danger posed by right-wing extremist groups conservatives were outraged at the perceived insult to all people with right-wing views. Republican Newt Gingrich tweeted:

The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired.

If Newt considered it an outrageous smear and insult to all veterans and conservatives to simply warn law enforcement that right-wing extremist groups might try to recruit returning veterans what would he think of the suggestion that all Christian veterans with right-wing views be debriefed to determine how much of a threat they might be? I suspect he would not label a failure to do that as an excess of political correctness.