TalkingPointsMemo has a great story today that deserves more attention. Amid all the hoopla over the Florida preacher’s on-again, off-again plan to burn the Koran on 9/11, not much has been said about Rev. Terry Jones’ past. Link to the story to get all the details — but the short version is that in 2008, Jones was kicked out of the church he had founded in Cologne, Germany by congregants after his rhetoric and actions became more and more radical, including yanking people out of hospital beds to substitute prayer for modern medicine. Jones also turned his church into a for-profit enterprise for the benefit of one Terry Jones, which cost his church its tax-exempt status. The kicker of TPM’s story is that in the 1990s, when Germany was threatening to change Jones’ tax status, who came to his defense? That would be bigshots in the GOP, namely Sen. Al D’Amato (R-NY) and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY), along with the State Department and even Amnesty International.