Dick Durbin is about to do what Democrats do best; pander to a minority.

In this case, the minority is Muslim and Durbin sees evil walking the land where Muslim constitutional rights are concerned:

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who chairs a subcommittee on the Senate Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on March 29 on protecting the civil rights of Muslim Americans. The hearing is being billed as the first of its kind for Congress.

Durbin said the hearing is necessary following an increase in anti-Muslim bigorty in the United States, including "[Koran]burnings, restrictions on mosque construction, hate crimes, hate speech, and other forms of discrimination."

Is it true? Has there been an "increase" in "anti-Muslim bigotry?"

Washington Times:

In 2009, the latest FBi statistics available, anti-Islamic hate crimes accounted for 9.3 percent of the 1,376 religiously motivated hate crimes recorded. That's far less than the 70.1 percent that were anti-Jewish.

Let's take that notion by Durbin of an "increase" in anti-Muslim bigotry for a spin and see if he's right.

FBI stats from 2008 show that there were 105 incidents of hate crimes directed against Muslims, with 125 offenses cataloged involving 130 victims. For 2009, those numbers were 107 incidents, 128 offenses, and 130 victims.

No increase - repeat, no increase - in the number of victims. A less than 2% increase in the number of incidents and offenses over that period.

Let's look at this from the standpoint of time. What were the statistics for hate crimes against Muslims in 2003?

Incidents: 149; Offenses: 155; Victims; 171

Dear Dick Durbin: Incidents and victims of Anti-Muslim bigotry has gone down considerably since 2003.

Since the number of anti-Jewish hate crimes has risen fairly steadily over that same period - from 1025 victims in 2003 to 1132 victims in 2009 - maybe you're looking at the wrong religion to investigate, Dicky? 

The question is - did he think nobody would look this up and challenge his bald faced lie? Took me 5 minutes of googling to find the reports and less than a minute to find these tables.

This is not a serious effort to investigate anything. It is an outright pander to a religious group that keeps crying wolf about how terrible it is to be a Muslim in America. I don't dismiss or excuse those incidents by knuckledraggers who commit acts of violence against anyone based on their religion. (Whether there should be anything in the law called a "hate crime" is another story). But we should draw the line when politicians - for no good reason or, in Durbin's case, manufactured reasons - seek to exploit our divisions for political gain.