Tom Parker, Amnesty International’s Policy Director for Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights and himself a survivor of an IRA bomb attack, has this to say about Peter King’s hypocrisy about terrorism. (h/t Susie)

That problem is simple: if your test for whether or not terrorist violence is acceptable is whether or not you agree with the cause that it furthers, you will never have the moral authority to condemn such acts when they are carried out by others. The use of violence against innocents must be wrong in whatever form it takes. Take any other position and you are open, as Congressman King undoubtedly is, to charges of hypocrisy.

There is no way to varnish the fact that for twenty years Congressman King consistently supported a violent armed group that murdered men, women and children in pursuit of its political goals. It is also worth noting that those victims were citizens of America’s closest ally in the struggle against Al Qaeda.

These are not frivolous times and rabble-rousers do not make good statesman.

Parker is right about King. But King is just the most obvious example of a general slide in this country toward having just that test, measuring terror based on whether or not we agree with the cause.