SPLC's Mark Potok & MSNBC's Tucker Carlson

I don't have a video or link or transcripts yet, and perhaps never will, yet I was certainly pleased to see Mark Potok, Intelligence Project Director of own Southern Poverty Law Center, handle Tucker Carlson this evening. Tucker tried mischaracterizing the SPLC's concerns of extremist types using recruiting shortfalls to enter the military. Mr. Potok, who appears to the left, simply wouldn't allow Carlson's foolishness to go unchallenged. Well done sir! Peace ... or War!

UPDATE - July 11, 2006 - Here's the transcript:
Well, is the United States military becoming a training ground for neo-Nazi and other extremist groups? An organization called the Southern Poverty Law Center says oh, yes. That group claims white supremacists are taking advantage of relaxed recruiting standards to join the armed forces where they get weapons training and explosive training. Are we breeding a new generation of Timothy McVeighs? That‘s the question.
Who knows, but I will point out the obvious point, that the Southern Poverty Law Center raises quite a bit of money pedaling the notion that indeed, it does. That the military does harbor potential Timothy McVeighs. So let‘s ask someone who‘s intimately involved with The Southern Poverty Law Center, which incidentally has called the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to do something about this. Mark Potok is joining us now from the Southern Poverty Law Center to explain why he believes the military is being infiltrated by white supremacists. Mark, thanks a lot for coming on.
MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: Well thanks for having me.
CARLSON: It seems like you have no evidence at all that this is actually true. Do you?
POTOK: Well, I think that‘s completely false. You know...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: How many white supremacists are in the military then?
POTOK: Well, listen to what I have to say. First of all, you might want to remember that back in ‘96, as well as ‘86, there were two scandals, two major scandals having to do with extremists in the military.
CARLSON: Yes, I remember.
POTOK: In 1996, a neo-Nazi gang based in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg actually murdered a black couple as some kind of initiation right. That produced a big scandal, which ended with William Perry, then the defense secretary, issuing a strengthened set of regulations, designed to stop this very phenomenon. At the time, a study was done by a task force on extremism in the Army and what they found actually was that 0.52 percent of the armed forces, if their survey was accurate, were extremists...
CARLSON: OK. OK...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: ... right to the president. That was 10 years ago...
POTOK: Well that works out to 7,300 people...
CARLSON: ... 20 years ago. How about right now?
(CROSSTALK)
POTOK: OK, what I‘m talking about...
(CROSSTALK)
POTOK: OK, well let me say my peace.
CARLSON: Please.
POTOK: We did quite a lot of work looking at this and we found a number of anecdotal instances. Later on as we got into the reporting, we started to talk to actual Defense Department investigators. Several were not named, one did speak for the record and was named, a man named Scott Barfield and had some fairly amazing things to say. One of them, for instance, was that he and his crew had identified 320 extremists at one single fort, Fort Lewis, in the state of Washington where he stays. When the commanders were informed of this, only two were thrown out.
CARLSON: OK but...
POTOK: He went on to say...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I‘m sorry. You have gone on quite a bit and I guess the reason I sound a little bit agitated is the implication of what you‘re saying is pretty serious.
POTOK: I agree.
CARLSON: You‘re suggesting that the military, the Army is in fact allowing this. They‘re not doing their best to root these guys out, if in fact they know that there are 300 extremists, whatever that is at one military base, and only two have been brought to justice. You‘re implying that the U.S. military is in league with white supremacists and that‘s a very, very strong thing to say...
POTOK: No, that‘s a completely...
CARLSON: ... and you seem to have no actual evidence...
POTOK: ... false allegation.
CARLSON: What do you mean? You‘re the one making the allegation.
POTOK: Well I‘m not implying...
CARLSON: And you don‘t have any names. You don‘t have...
POTOK: ... that the military...
(CROSSTALK)
POTOK: Do I get to speak on your show?
CARLSON: Go ahead. I‘m waiting for the evidence...
POTOK: OK.
CARLSON: ... with baited breath...
POTOK: What we are saying is that the standards have been relaxed by some recruiters and some commanders in some places. We are not alleging that Secretary Rumsfeld is somehow in league with neo-Nazis, as you seem to have read our report, and is somehow colluding to bring these people into the military.
CARLSON: I‘m not saying that.
POTOK: That‘s plainly false. And that‘s not at all what we suggest. What we suggest is that there‘s been a lot of pressure on the military in terms of recruiting. Last year, as you probably know, they failed to make their quotas. They have made them this year, but this pressure has been ongoing and building since the actions in Afghanistan, of course afterwards in Iraq.
CARLSON: OK, but you still haven‘t given me an example within the last 10 years. I can give you two examples and more...
(CROSSTALK)
POTOK: ... man named Robert Lee West (ph) who is right now in the military. You know we have pictures of him on our Web site holding a bunch of military weapons and posing in front of a swastika flag...
CARLSON: Wait a second. We also...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Sir, let me finish.
POTOK: Sure.
CARLSON: We have a number of examples of radical Muslims in the ranks of the U.S. military killing people. For instance, there was a soldier, an enlisted soldier in Kuwait...
POTOK: Yes.
CARLSON: ... right before the invasion of Iraq, who fragged people in his unit because of Islam. You had John Lee Muhammad, who is an Army veteran, who was trained in the use of firearms in the military who became an observant Muslim and shot a bunch of people, the famous D.C. sniper...
POTOK: That is true.
CARLSON: You could make a pretty compelling case that radical Islam is a problem in the enlisted ranks and instead you‘re claiming that white supremacists are the problem. And I don‘t see them shooting up anybody. My only point is maybe you‘re stuck in a different decade. Maybe it‘s time to kind of update your stereotypes of what the risks are.
POTOK: Well you may think they‘re stereotypes, Tucker. You‘ve named me two cases which I know about very well.
CARLSON: OK...
POTOK: In fact...
(CROSSTALK)
POTOK: ... a number of cases—excuse me.
CARLSON: Have you issued a report about the Islamic shooting...
POTOK: Yes, we‘ve issued a lengthy report about it. Apparently, you haven‘t looked at it.
CARLSON: Haven‘t seen it...
POTOK: But we certainly have and we‘ve issued a fairly detailed letter to the secretary as well and you know whatever you may think, our purpose is not to sully the armed forces or even to attack the secretary. Our point is to remind people and in particular, the secretary of defense, that this has been a serious problem in the past, to the point where two secretaries of defense, whatever you may pick, thought that it was a very serious problem and issued regulations, instituted task force studies and a number of other measures...
CARLSON: Yes. No, I get it. I get it. Look, Mark, I get it. I get it.
POTOK: You may recall there were congressional hearings on this matter.
CARLSON: It was a serious problem—but so was typhus in Washington, D.C. and it‘s not now. Maybe this is still a problem. Maybe it‘s not. I‘d like to see more evidence, but I—in the meantime, I appreciate your coming on. Thank you.