Rep. Michele Bachmann defended Rep. Peter King’s investigations into homegrown terrorism among America’s Muslim communities on Saturday just hours before one of her vocal critics seemed to agree with her. On his show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher interviewed Rep. Keith Ellison and said that terrorists from an Islamic background present “a unique and greater threat” than right-wing terrorists such as militias and anti-abortion activists. Ellison said Maher is  “coming to the wrong conclusions.”

On Saturday, Boston’s Talk 1200 radio host Jeff Katz spoke with Bachmann about New York Rep. King’s hearings on “radicalization” among Muslims in America and Rep. Keith Ellison’s emotional testimony against the hearing. Bachmann said a “veneer of political correctness” was putting the nation in jeopardy, and Katz claimed that Ellison was “pretending to cry” during the testimony last week.

“Let’s talk about the hearings that congressman King is having,” Katz said. “I think it’s a reasonable, common sense approach to this, but you have this Keith Ellison pretending to cry; he’s a hero, I just don’t get it.”

To that, Bachmann said, “Well, I think a lot of people get it; they see through the hearings and they want to see our country be safe.”

She added, “What’s really been a tragedy is applying a veneer of political correctness to national security and also the issue of terrorism in general.”

She talked about the slaying of two American servicemembers in Germany and a Saudi Arabian student in Dallas who was building a bomb, both within the last two months.

“If we don’t understand that there are Sharia-compliant terrorists in our midst, if we purposefully and intentionally fail to understand our enemy, we will make ourselves more vulnerable,” she said.

Bachmann did hint a bit at whether she was running for president, saying she “isn’t in and isn’t out,” and offered this pledge: “I tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for President of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table.”

The same day, Ellison appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, where Maher made statements similar to Bachman’s.

Ellison said he came to Islam after meeting Muslims in college while working on social justice issues.

“We need to have respect for people who are believers and those who are nonbelievers,” Ellison said, noting the need for pluralism in faith debates and public policy.

Maher then talked about Islam and terrorism. “I would say that the threat from radicalized Muslims is a unique and greater threat” than that posed by anti-abortion activists such as Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, or right-wing bomber Timothy McVeigh.

“There is obviously something going on that they’re getting from the Koran,” he said.

“You are casting a very wide net and coming to the wrong conclusions,” Ellison said. On the Koran, he said that “it is easy to take things out of context.”

Maher said, “I’ve heard this many times, and I don’t buy it.”

“Like any ideologue, they will take things out of context to do what they want to do,” Ellison said, adding that many terrorists “cite political grievances; they don’t use too much religion.”

He said many Muslims, like himself, oppose terrorism based on the teachings of Islam.

Maher, who is an atheist, has frequently bashed Bachmann, an evangelical Christian, on his show and his columns. On the Muslim investigations, it seems that the agree.

By expert estimation, Franken is himself six weeks away from being seated in the Senate. It’s a full month before the Minnesota Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case of Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken. A ruling in Coleman’s appeal of their 2008 U.S. Senate election may take weeks more. After a statewide hand recount and a seven-week election-contest trial, Franken holds a 312-vote margin of victory over Coleman.

Here’s a clip including Franken’s free transition advice for Bush on Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” TV show. The discussion starts at the 7:00 mark, with the exchange between Franken and conservative Los Angeles radio host Al Rantel (paritally transcribed below) starting at the 8:00 mark.

RANTEL: A third of the time’s gone while this guy (Franken) and his friends try to steal the election from Bush.

FRANKEN: I will not let that stand. But go ahead, and then we’ll …

RANTEL: For Bush it’s harder than for Gore…

FRANKEN: His father has picked the cabinet.

RANTEL: That’s not true. For Gore, he’s got a Democratic bureaucracy already in place by Clinton. …

FRANKEN: OK, the point is you really can’t start a transition until you’ve been elected president.

RANTEL: Well, I think he has been elected president.

FRANKEN: I know you think that, but he hasn’t. And you guys would like everyone to think it.

RANTEL: What would you have said, if Gore would have been certified by Florida on Sunday night –

FRANKEN: By his campaign manager? By his campaign vice president?

RANTEL: No, by the counties that reported the numbers. What would you have said?

FRANKEN: I would have said: Recount the votes.

RANTEL: Oh, you would not have. If Gore had been elected you would say recount the votes?

FRANKEN: I would have taken up Bush on the statewide recount.

MAHER (interrupting): What about the lie that I was just talking about? The lie that you have to rush to appoint a cabinet when of course they don’t.

RANTEL: Well, everybody at this point has got to go through FBI background checks. If they’re cabinet members, they’ve got to be approved by the Congress, by the Senate –

MAHER: And that takes three months?

RANTEL: Well, it’s already almost December.

MAHER: Just admit it’s a lie. I’ll give you the office. It’s just a lie.

FRANKEN (to Maher, pointing to Rantel): He and I hate each other. But you’re wrong.