SWAT team prepares at the Watertown Mall (Photo: Getty)

With the news that two of the suspected terrorists from last Monday's Boston Marathon bombing have roots in the Russia's Muslim-dominated Chechnyan region, Long Island Congressman Pete King says the United States "can't afford to be politically correct" with its immigration policies anymore.

"I do believe that whether it's Chechnya or whether it's really any countries from areas where there is fighting going on--particularly terrorist fighting--that we have to be extra careful, extra scrupulous," Mr. King argued during a PIX 11 interview earlier this afternoon. "That would include, to me, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Somalia [and] obviously .... somebody of a Chechnyan background. All of that, to me, we can't afford to be politically correct and say that somebody coming from a country where there's a Muslim war going on is the same as somebody ... from Switzerland, for instance. There's a difference."

Mr. King, who is also the former head of the House Committee on Homeland Security, pointed to the fact that both suspects have been in the country legally for a number of years, one of whom immigrated when he was very young. Although the motives for the Boston attack are still very much unclear, Mr. King concluded that there's a problem of radicalization in the local Muslim community.

"This person was 9 years old when he to this country," he said. "Basically, he was raised as an American. It's not like he came over here as some kind of a terrorist. So what in the community radicalized him? We have to look at the whole issue of radicalization as to why someone--who was 9 years old who he came to this country, has received scholarships to an excellent school--what would prompt him to kill and maim and cause such carnage to innocent people and kids?"

Of course, this is not the first time Mr. King has brought up the "radicalization" of America's Muslims--the Republican congressman previously held high-profile committee hearings on the very subject that drew controversy and accusations of Islamophobia. Regardless, Mr. King feels it's a simple issue as he pressed his case today.

"This is just something that has to be faced," he said. "There are people in this country that want to kill us and we have to face up to that."

(Photo: Newseum.org)

This morning, the New York Post's cover featured the power couple of President Barack Obama's second inauguration--Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z--under a headline accusing Washington pols of being more starstruck by the celebrity duo than by Mr. Obama himself. Not everyone agrees with that interpretation, however, including GOP Rep. Pete King, pictured snapping a photo of Ms. Knowles. In a CNN interview today, Mr. King said the Post actually had it backwards, and Ms. Knowles was the one basking in his presence.

"It's a great moment for Beyoncé to be seen with me," Mr. King joked. "I mean, her career is definitely going to take off. That's what she was waiting for all these years."

Mr. King further boosted his photography skills, claiming to be "very talented" and, on Twitter, said his photo was “award winning."

During his television interview, Mr. King discussed the substance of Mr. Obama's inaugural address as well, arguing it was too campaign-oriented and lacked a unifying message.

"Well, the president won the election, so he's certainly entitled to pursue his agenda. I thought it would have been more effective though if he had spoken in more thematic terms," Mr. King explained. "I thought the way he got specific yesterday, made it more of a ... campaign-type address. Parts of it were very good, he's an excellent speaker obviously....I thought yesterday, he missed an opportunity. I'm not as critical as some of the others may be, but I think it would have better for him if he tried to reach out a little more."

Watch below:

Governor Andrew Cuomo speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday. (Photo: Getty)

Governor Andrew Cuomo spent the day in Washington yesterday lobbying for the approximately $40 billion in federal aid he is asking for to help the state recover from Hurricane Sandy. Politicker spoke with sources familiar with the governor's schedule to get details on how he spent his time and who he met with on his first trip to Washington since taking office.

"The governor hit the trifecta; the White House, the Majority Leader and the speaker,"  an administration official said.

With the country facing the fiscal cliff and the tense budget talks in D.C., securing such a large aid package is a tall order. Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg also made the trip to Washington to lobby for the funds.

Mr. Cuomo's afternoon began at the White House where he met with President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Jack Lew, budget chief Jeffrey Zients, Director of Legislative Affairs Rob Nabor's and the White House's point person on the long-term Sandy recovery effort, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. The governor was accompanied by his spokesman Josh Vlasto and his senior advisor Howard Glaser. On his way out of the White House, Governor Cuomo also bumped into the president's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett and economic advisor Gene Sperling and he talked with the about the request for recovery aid.

After his time at the White House, Governor Cuomo went to the Capitol Building where he met with New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. The trio had a meeting with Senator Dan Inouye, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, and Senator Thad Cochran, the committee's vice chairman. They also met with Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, who also sits on the appropriations committee and personally dealt with another large request for federal storm after her state was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Following their meetings with the members of the appropriations committee, Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Schumer and Ms. Gillibrand met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Next, Mr. Cuomo met with leaders of the House of Representatives. He began by meeting with Speaker of the House John Boehner accompanied by two of the New York City area's Republican congressman Michael Grimm and Peter King. Mr. Boehner's support will be pivotal to the push for Sandy aid because, according to Mr. Grimm, he has expressed willingness to approve a package without offsets from other items in the federal budget. This is expected to face opposition from other members of the GOP House majority and Mr. Boehner and other Republicans who support the aid request will be crucial to turning sufficient Republican votes for it to pass. After his meeting with Mr. Boehner, Governor Cuomo also spent about a half an hour meeting with the Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The last item on the governor's list was a press conference with all of the members of New York's congressional delegation. At the press conference, Mr. Cuomo said he hoped to have an aid package finalized by Christmas. Mr. King, who also spoke said Mr. Boehner was strongly supportive of the push for federal Sandy recovery funds.

"The Speaker is committed to making this work," he said. "To do what has to be done."

Mr. Cuomo echoed this sentiment and described his meeting with Mr. Boehner as "positive."

"We're trying to cooperate--collaborate our politics, if you will," he said of working with the GOP.

Peter King thinks that  Obama should not campaign on the Osama bin Laden killing.

Mitt Romney said that “even Jimmy Carter” would have ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Since Mayor Bloomberg is calling for the public release of teacher evaluations, Bill de Blasio is calling for the public release of performance evaluations of Bloomberg staffers.

After Christine Quinn walked out of a living wage press conference, Bill de Blasio said  “this is not the end but the beginning of a struggle for equality, a struggle to uplift every New Yorker.”

Rich Becker and Sean Maloney sparred in the 18th CD.

Andrew Cuomo created an education reform commission to deal with sagging graduation and college ready rates.

The public will have the chance to vote on which historic sites are worthy of historic preservation funds.

Chris Owens doesn’t support Brad Lander for BP.

Chuck Schumer will be fundraising for the State Senate Democrats.

Joe Addabbo has begun fundraising for his race against Eric Ulrich.

Four members of the New York City Council are suing the NYPD over their tactics during the Occupy protests.

Rumors of an NYC happy-hour ban are untrue, the Dept. of Health Says.

Queens jurors lead the city in no-shows.

John Kerry has emerged as a top foreign policy surrogate for Barack Obama

Obama wants some of the Bill Clinton magic to rub off on him.

House Republicans are decrying the bank bailout while they accept campaign donations from bailed-out banks.

A top EPA official has resigned after a video was dug up of him saying how he would “crucify” companies that violate environmental laws.

Obama touted his labor and jobs record before the AFL-CIO.

Mounting job losses on the city and state level are hurting Obama’s jobs strategy.

Andrew Cuomo gave his most expansive comments yet about the 2016 speculation surrounding him, but still wouldn’t say much.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton noted that both she and Cuomo and Marco Rubio “have ended up on some other lists this past couple of months.”

Political analysts are uncertain about Ray Kelly’s mayoral prospects.  

Eric Ulrich slammed Joe Addabo for what he called his gay marriage flip-flop.

Carolyn Maloney declined to criticize Mitt Romney’s wealth--or Barack Obama’s attacks on it.

Charlie Rangel was a no-show when Congress convened yesterday.

Suffolk County had the largest turnout for Mitt Romney yesterday.

A  30-member panel appointed by Cuomo to “identify and eliminate barriers to economic growth” will meet for the first time tomorrow.

Dov Hikind said that Rory Lancman is “fabulous when it comes to Israel.”

Thousands of New Yorkers are stuck behind bars because they can’t afford the bail.

A look inside Walmart’s slow, quiet campaign to break into New York City.

Can the Brooklyn Tech Center provide solutions to urban issues?

Pat Kiernan is moving to Williamsburg.

Barack Obama reads blogs (at least he reads Andrew Sullivan’s)

Frank Rich was never taken in by John Edwards.

So long Newt Gingrich.

What was likable, and not, about Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.

Meet Eric Ferhnstrom: He’s not Mitt Romney’s brain, he’s his balls.

Mitt Romney is running on the economy, without specifying what he would do differently.

Blue Dog Democrats appear to be facing extinction.

The subject of this session was the ongoing Secret Service prostitution scandal, and after Mr. King deplored the agents behavior, Mr. Imus asked him, "What do you do now? Just grandstand with a stupid hearing or what?"

Mr. King for once however did not take the bait, and said he didn't see the need for hearings, grandstanding or not.

"No, actually. My counter-terrorism investigators are investigating it. I am in constant contact with the Secret Service itself," Mr. King said.  "I am talking to people from previous administrations as to how they feel it is going to play out, what should be looked at. We have sources obviously throughout the law enforcement community, we are talking to them. We are tracking down every piece of information. If my investigators find the same information the Secret Service does, and we agree, I don't necessarily see the purpose of a hearing as to what happened, if everybody ends up agreeing on what happened. But there certainly could be a hearing about what the Secret Service is going to do to prevent this from happening in the future."

Mr. Imus though would not take this kind of sober talk from Mr. King, and quickly turned the conversation to Anthony Weiner.

"By the way have you reached out to your friend Congressman Weiner yet?"

"Why do you keep bringing up poor Anthony Weiner," Mr. King responded. Are you saying Anthony Weiner was the twelfth man in Colombia?"

Take a look:

Peter King

Congressman Peter King held a rally this morning where he blasted press reports critical of the NYPD's efforts to monitor the Muslim community as "left wing rumormongering" and The Politicker asked him if he thought coverage of the controversial stop and frisk policy was similarly biased.

"Absolutely," Mr. King said. "The stop and frisk policy of the NYPD has reduced murders by 70 to 80 percent over the last twenty years."

The NYPD stopped and interrogated a record number of people last year, about 87 percent of whom were black or Latino. The policy has come under intense criticism of late from politicians and others who argue it is ineffective and racially discriminatory.

Congressman King said rather than criticizing stop and frisk, minorities should be thankful for it.

"The fact is that there are thousands of young people in minority communities who are alive today because of the stop and frisk policy and they should be the ones thanking, and many of them are thanking, the NYPD for that policy, for taking guns away from murderers on our streets," he said.

Congressman Peter King at the rally outside One Police Plaza. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

Republican Long Island Congressman Peter King held a rally outside One Police Plaza this morning to support the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly in the wake of Associated Press and The New York Times reports critical of the department's monitoring of the Muslim community. Mr. King described these articles as "anti-NYPD" reporting instigated by the Council on American Islamic Relations, which he described as having terrorist ties.

"It is absolutely disgraceful that The New York Times, the Associated Press, other elements of the politically correct media have allowed themselves to be used by groups such as CAIR and I just wish once ... just once, the New York Times or the Associated Press instead of calling CAIR a 'Muslim civil rights organization' would refer to them as what they are; unindicted co-conspirators in the most major terrorist financing case in the United States," Mr. King said referring to allegations the group was involved in providing support to Hamas. "That's what CAIR is, and yet, when you read the papers and you read the reports, it's anti-NYPD."

Last month, the Associated Press reported the NYPD conducted widespread surveillance of Muslim student groups and mosques. In January, The New York Times reported the NYPD continuously screened a documentary called "The Third Jihad," which accuses "homegrown" Islamic groups of waging cultural and violent jihad against America, for officers. Both these reports sparked outrage against what critics described as overzealous and discriminatory surveillance tactics.

Congressman King, who is Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence praised the NYPD's anti-terror efforts and defended the tactic of investigating specific communities.

"This is such political hypocrisy. When you think that, for instance, in the years when the government was going after the mafia, they went to the Italian-American community. I'm Irish-American, when they were going after the Westies, they went into the Irish-American community, because that's where the threat was coming from," Mr. King said. "The fact is, the overwhelming majority of Muslim-Americans are outstanding Americans, but the threat to our civilization today comes from that small minority within the Muslim-American community and thank God that Ray Kelly is working to make sure that we find out who they are."

Mr. King was accompanied by members of Muslim American group, including Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who narrated "The Third Jihad." A red white and blue banner behind Congressman King and the other speakers proclaimed, "American Muslims Support the NYPD."

A large contingent of press gathered to cover the rally, which was attended by less than twenty people including the congressman. Some of the people at the rally carried signs reading "CAIR Does Not Speak For Me" and "The New York Times Missed a Fact: American Muslims Support NYPD."

Mr. King said he was "proud to stand here today on behalf of the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly." He said the department's intelligence efforts have thwarted several terror attacks and said they should serve as a model to other law enforcement agencies.

"Ray Kelly and the NYPD have sworn never, ever to allow an attack against this city again. There's been 14 attacks stopped, primarily because of the NYPD," Congressman King said. "No one no one is doing more to stop terrorism than the NYPD. What they are doing with their counterterror force, with their intelligence units is what all police departments should be doing at all levels of government. And thank God that Ray Kelly is not backing down to the politically correct media."

At one point while Congressman King was speaking, a heckler attempted to interrupt the proceedings by shouting "Muslims don't support NYPD police brutality." Mr. King continued undeterred, wrapping up his remarks by suggesting Commissioner Kelly be given a medal for his work fighting terrorism.

"Let's give a medal to Ray Kelly and let's denounce the New York Times and the Associated Press for what they are; left wing rumormongers carrying out the work of CAIR," Mr. King said.

"Ray Kelly and the NYPD should get a medal for what they are doing," he told CBS's Marcia Kramer. "This is good police work. If you are going after radical Muslims you don’t go to Ben’s Kosher Deli."

Mr. King has long been unapologetic about targeting Muslims. Last year, in his capacity as chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, he opened up an investigation into the "radicalization" of American-born Muslims, a hearing which was criticized for being inflammatory.

Take a look:

It was something of a desultory affair: A Friday afternoon, cold, gray skies overhead, the pigeons on the stoop far outnumbering the number of shivering press who gathered there, mostly at the behest of assignment editors who hadn’t gotten the memo that the battle was over. Only three elected officials even bothered to show up.

Fast forward two weeks: The Obama administration announced a plan to require religious institutions to provide contraceptive coverage. Amid another uproar, some of the region’s highest-profile conservative politicians tried to one-up their counterparts, planning a rare presser, just as Sunday Mass was letting out, on the glittering steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral—the home parish of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the man who almost single-handedly stopped the president’s initiative.

In this case, however, after President Obama had backed down, the local electeds did too, scrubbing the press conference at the last minute.

But either way, the events in Washington and their corollaries locally showed that after decades of détente over reproductive politics, both sides were once again spoiling for a fight.

Political analysts say that you have to go back almost all the way to 1992 to recall a time when issues around abortion and contraception were central to a presidential campaign. Then, it was a deliberate effort by Bill Clinton to reach out to women voters and differentiate himself from President George H.W. Bush—and observers were surprised that someone who ran promising to be a centrist “New Democrat” would brook no compromise on Roe v. Wade. Since then, while social issues have often risen to the forefront of the national conversation, they were usually matters like gay rights, or the right to die (e.g., the Terri Schiavo case). When it came to abortion, if it was an issue that mattered to voters, they knew which team to sign up for, so it was in both parties’ interest to downplay the division in the hopes of grabbing anybody in the middle.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what broke the peace. Is it a matter of an uptick in the economy that has pushed kitchen-table issues aside? Is it a matter of a Republican Party that reflexively opposes everything President Obama does? Is it a matter of a GOP primary, one where the front-runner has to prove his abortion bona fides?

Or perhaps it was a battle that has been roiling below the surface for years, just waiting for a spark to light it.

“The pro-life movement has always been at a high level of mobilization, and that is easy to forget in the news cycle,” said Ziad Munson, a sociologist at Lehigh University and author of The Making of Pro-Life Activists: How Social Mobilization Works. “The fact that elements of that movement were able to capture the public imagination at this moment is not that surprising. If you knock on this door enough times, eventually it will open.”

Both sides now are trying to count the last fracas as a win for their side, and promise further skirmishes going forward.

“The president really made a political mistake,” said Peter King, a Long Island Republican congressman. “He lost. Maybe, you know, to you, we Catholics all look alike, I don’t know, but there are real differences and that he got so many of the real liberal Catholics [angry] showed what a mistake he made.”

But even some of Mr. King’s party aren’t confident reproductive rights is a fight they can win.

“I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, but I think they know that by baiting social conservatives, they energize their activists,” said David Johnson, a Republican consultant who worked on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign.  “If we are arguing about social issues in the 2012 election, Obama wins.”

But the fact that Mr. Obama was stopped (and, even his supporters conceded, a little embarrassed) owes less to any change in the culture and more to a jovial gentleman who lives just north of Times Square, someone little known to most people on Capitol Hill but who seems to represent a significant source of power in the future: Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

As far back as November, according to Politico, Mr. Dolan had a meeting with President Obama and a close circle of advisers over the measure. Afterward, he told people that he believed an accommodation with the White House could be made, and when it wasn’t, Mr. Dolan launched a full-bore assault, taking to the op-ed pages of major newspapers like USA Today and The Washington Post, the pulpit and the Internet to excoriate the president.

According to sources on Capitol Hill, Mr. Dolan was furious with the president after the plan to force religious institutions to approve contraceptive coverage was announced.

“He felt like the president had not been honest with him,” said one congressional source.

Just as the furor over the Mr. Obama’s compromise—to require insurance companies, but not the religious institutions themselves to pay for the coverage—was raging on the weekend talk shows, Mr. Dolan was en route to Rome, where he was about to be ordained a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI.

The timing was coincidental, but for someone whose “media savvy” seems to be the first term people use to describe him, it couldn’t have turned out better.

“The fact that the pope makes him a cardinal, it means that when he speaks he does so with the full force of the Vatican behind him,” said John L. Allen, a correspondent with the National Catholic Reporter who has written a book with Mr. Dolan. “Part of the reason this issue got so much play is because Dolan has been an unusually savvy spokesman for the agenda. Bishops put out statements all the time. You don’t often see them put the world on fire like this.”

A year and a half ago, Mr. Dolan was the surprising winner of a contested election to become president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In the previous decades, the group had been a moribund presence on Capitol Hill.

“I was not always impressed by them,” said Congressman King. “They have, for the most been pretty liberal … They would go through the motions on abortion, but other than that they would be really into the social spending, and pretty liberal on international affairs.”

Catholic scholars say this isn’t quite right—that after spending most of the ’70s and ’80s on social justice issues, the bishops have been devoting themselves to “protecting life,” i.e, reproductive policies.

Only before, they didn’t have such a good face.

“Not everyone is a good spokesman, and he is someone people want to follow,” said Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York Catholic Conference. “He is committed to protecting the civil liberties of the church and I think he is serious about the degradation of the First Amendment.”

Even supporters of Mr. Dolan say that he was rendered relatively ineffective during the gay marriage debate in New York. And there remains lingering distrust among some conservatives for the bishop’s tacit backing of Obamacare and his support of liberalized immigration measures.

“Dolan is so charismatic that it is more like he is raising the profile of the group than they are raising his profile,” said one longtime Hill staffer. “Before, there would be things they wanted to do but they couldn’t articulate them in the right way. It takes someone like Dolan to step up and say, ‘There is a role we can play here.’”

But in Mr. Dolan conservatives on Capitol Hill feel at last like they have an ally who is, in the parlance of the day, a “severe conservative,” albeit one who cops to indulging the occasional cold beer at a baseball game and doesn’t seem to have ever met a camera he doesn’t love.

“Past presidents of the bishop’s conference have been nice guys, but I don’t think anyone would describe them as media dynamos,” said Mr. Allen. “This is conservatism with a compassionate edge. It’s not the fire-breathing, finger-wagging prophet of doom. He just exudes hail-fellow-well-met, back-slapping, baby-kissing good cheer. He is an up-with-people ambassador. He defies people’s stereotypes of what a conservative religious leader is like.”

Catholic scholars say that Archbishop Dolan remains mostly unknown outside of New York. But that is starting to change, first with his arrival here in 2009, then with his election as head of the Conference of Bishops, and now with his elevation to cardinal and his going toe-to-toe with the Obama administration. Catholics remain some of the quintessential swing voters in the presidential campaign, and if the Obama administration is wining battle after battle, political analysts warn that it may come at the expense of a elevating a new adversary.

“The Catholic bishops were out of front on this in a way that they hadn’t been in a long time,” said Professor Munson. “It was clear that they weren’t going to accept symbolic compromises. It was the first time in a long time you saw them flex their muscles. Who knows how assertive they are going to get.”

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