Politics: Here's a Good Reason to Lock 'Em Up

Republican Congressman from North Carolina Howard Coble has joined the ranks of marginally bigoted speech previously inhabited largely by Louisiana Rep. John Cooksey. Remember Cooksey said, following the terrorist attacks, that sheriffs in Louisiana should just look out for anyone with a diaper on their head and lock 'em up. Well, Coble was quoted as agreeing with FDR's plan for interning Japanese Americans. His reasoning is dubious, and leads to a muddled and totally baseless endorsement of both the WWII-era belief that there were actual Japanese Americans out to get us and the current paranoia that every Arab-American is a terrorist waiting to happen.

According to the AP:

He didn't agree with the caller, but said he did agree with President Franklin Roosevelt's treatment of Japanese-Americans. Coble said: "We were at war. They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species…For many…it wasn't safe for them to be on the street…Some probably were intent on doing harm to us…just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us."

Want to know what's even better? Coble has been selected to be chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security that supervises the U.S. Department of Justice, including laws aimed at preventing terrorism. Well, this is definitely the guy I want in there making sure that the Justice Department isn't leaping to any conclusions about Arab-Americans.