As I already noted in my post about David Brooks recent white washing of the increase in Islamophobia, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a report out on the recent wave of hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the United States. Their spokesman and director of publications and information Mark Potok went on CNN to discuss that article.

He didn't get a chance to do it until near the end of the interview but he rightfully called out the Republican Party and the right wing of their party for fanning the flames on this issue and for their part in "pouring gasoline on this fire."

He's absolutely right and I'm wondering just how badly they and Fox News are going to be willing to keep this up in order to win the mid-term elections this year before they over-play their hand or if they already have. One of my co-workers is deeply religious and involved in his church and he's been following this stuff and is worried that it's going to reflect badly on his church since this wingnut in Florida is so over the top and made sure to point out to me that this pastor didn't represent all Christians.

I tried to explain to him that this was nothing but part of an ongoing strategy by Republicans and our corporate media to fan the flames of racism and hatred and to make sure everyone is afraid of the scary black man in the White House and that it's disgusting and of course doesn't mean that all religious groups or Christians should be tagged with this one crazy person's extremism.

The fact that he's viewing this from that stand point makes me wonder if they have indeed overplayed how the electorate is responding to this nonsense, and I'd love to know if anyone else has had any similar reactions from friends or family as well. People who are middle of the road, non-political and just very religious don't want to be painted as raving wingnuts who hate Muslims. I hope to hell there are a lot of others out there like my co-worker who are watching this stuff and feel like he does as well where it doesn't make him feel like he wants to go vote for Republicans because he's afraid of the scary Muslims, but is embarrassed by what's going on and worried that he or his church is going to get tagged with the extremism instead.

And for anyone that wants to pretend like Fox hasn't been ginning this up to help the Republicans make electoral gains for a long time now, Media Matters has this report.

TIMELINE: Nine months of the right's anti-Muslim bigotry:

Cheered on by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media, conservative activists spent the past year engaged in an anti-Muslim campaign that included efforts to block the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan and demonize the imam spearheading the project. The bigotry has culminated in a Florida pastor's now-"suspended" plans to burn Qurans on September 11 -- plans that the pastor has explicitly linked to the controversy over the Islamic center.

Go read the rest and share with anyone that thinks Fox is a credible "news" organization.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.