Mr. Muhammad Goes To Washington
By Gary Larson
September 27, 2006
Keith Ellison will be the first Muslim in Congress, and the first former Nation of Islam firebrand to join its august ranks.
Invisible man Keith Ellison, not Ralph Ellison of the non-fiction classic, The Invisible Man, is the heir-apparent to a Democratic seat in the forthcoming 110th Congress.
A Muslim by conversion in college, he's a shoo-in. Forget the midterm election November 7. Ellison won the primary in Minnesota's "safe," bluer-than-blue Fifth District. Ellison -- mark that name well -- will succeed the reliably liberal, retiring 28-year Representative Martin O. Sabo (D-MN) in the new Congress on January 7, 2007.
Bet the ranch, planet, universe, Ellison wins over his Republican challenger on November 7.
He will be the first Muslim in Congress and the first former Nation of Islam firebrand to join its august ranks. Ellison will bring to the job tons of baggage mainstream media dared not relate. It's a huge cover-up on an unprecedented scale.
His past is all-but invisible to mainstream media. He has lashed out publicly at an America he apparently loathes, at street cops for pursuing cop-killers. He has called for the partition of the United States, blacks being handed the Deep South as an independent nation.
No, I am NOT making up any of this. Alas, truth is stranger than pulp fiction.
Ellison has said he'd quit Iraq, and support impeachment of President Bush. As an attorney he has called for freedom for local cop killers, for convicted gang bangers, and ex-SLA member Kathleen Soliah (Sara Jane Olson of St. Paul). She merely planted bombs under LA police cars, and assisted in a murderous SLA bank heist. That's all. What's the fuss?
What kind of man is this? Not your proverbial Mr. Smith going to Washington. Not by a long shot.
His pseudonyms are numerous. He is "Keith E. Hakim," "Keith X. Ellison" or "Keith Ellison Muhammad." Your pick. Same guy. All supported, at one time or another, the vile, racist messages of "Minister Farrakahn," tribal chieftain of the Nation of Islam.
No less than the top guy at the Hamas-supporting Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, boosts Ellison for Congress. Mr. Awad appeared at a rah-rah Ellison fund-raiser, and gave the max allowed by law to his fellow Muslim's campaign.
To be fair, Ellison claims now to be a benevolent soul, tolerant of whites, especially Jews, keen on winning the war on terrorism. Says so to local reporters; they parrot his words uncritically, nearly religiously, sans checking, as if he's some sort of Untouchable liberal icon.
Ellison's GOP opponent, a scholarly University of Minnesota business professor, Dr. Allan Fine, questions Ellison's dubious past. For this exercise of free speech, Professor Fine, a Jew, is maliciously assailed; he's called ugly things, such as "smearer," by wildly partisan editorialists. He is tagged as a bigot by the Democratic Party state chair, racial inflammation being his rallying cry, evidently, for the crap-hungry base, feeding on public ignorance.
The only ones to expose Ellison's shady past are Minnesota blogs, notably the famous Power Line. (Go there. Type "Keith Ellison" in its Search box. Presto! Information spills out, stuff news media ignore. Revealing, huh?)
Professor Fine had the audacity to term Ellison "unfit to represent the voters of the Fifth District," roughly Minneapolis and a ring of inner suburbs. Rather than address issues raised by Dr. Fine, the ultraliberal Minneapolis Star Tribune predictably strikes at the messenger, not his message, by engaging in name-calling. Sad. Very sad. But true.
Thankfully, a sole Star Tribune columnist, a voice crying in the wilderness, points to Ellison's warts. Katherine Kersten, formerly with the Council on the American Experiment, a local think tank, lays it on the line in her June 8, 2006, column. Same as Power Line, she asks, "Who is Keith Ellison?" Her answer in part:
He is a former outspoken supporter of Louis Farrakhan's notorious Nation of Islam . . .
Using the name Keith E. Hakim . . . Ellison claimed that splitting America into two nations, with five Southern states set aside for blacks, would be preferable to 'liberal social programs.'
In 1995, Ellison helped organize Minnesota participation in the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. At a fundraiser for the event he shared the stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Farrakhan's 'flamethrower' . . .
In Minneapolis, at the event where Ellison shared the stage with him, Khalid [Abdul Muhammad] delivered 'racist ranting,' according to a Star Tribune article. 'If words were swords,' said the article, 'the chests of Jews, gays and whites would be pierced.'
In 1992, he [Ellison] spoke at a protest rally after a Los Angeles jury acquitted police of beating Rodney King. 'Black people do not live under a democracy,' he told the crowd. 'You don't have an obligation to obey a government that considers you to be less than human.'
In 1997, Ellison publicly supported Joanne Jackson, executive director of the Minneapolis Initiative Against Racism, after she allegedly stated Jews were 'among the most racist white people.'
Power Line, the truth-seeking blog, captures in essence what two Twin Cities dailies, plus other deficient news media, fail utterly to cover:
Among other things we have reported here [in Power Line] that have not made their way into the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune are: Ellison's local leadership of the Nation of Islam; his defense of the 'truth' of an attack on Minneapolis Jews as 'the most racist white people': his affiliation with convicted murderer and [Twin Cities'] Vice Lords gang leader Sharif Willis; his support of the Vice Lords gangbangers charged (and subsequently convicted) with the murder of Minneapolis police officer Jerry Haaf; his outrageous attacks on law enforcement authorities; his demand that SLA terrorist Sara Jane Olson be freed; his concern for the continuing freedom of convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur on the lam in Havana. Not one of these elements of Ellison's public record has been reported in local media.
Shocking? Not to us local Minnesota yokels. We see daily in print, and online, the dereliction of duty of a journalism corps presumably, by their work product, agenda-driven, and quite shameless about it. (One reporter replied to my email with the b-word, like the party chair, a cheap shot.)
Some hint the Star Tribune's hard-left editorial board was at least vaguely aware of Ellison's shadowy past -- maybe, as readers of Power Line? The newspaper did NOT endorse Ellison in the primary.
The nod (called an "institutional viewpoint?) went to his primary foe, former chief of staff for Congressman Sabo. In effusive praise of Mike Erlandson's candidacy, the paper says not a word -- "mum" it is -- about Keith Ellison's past. A-mazing!
What editors did NOT say, of course, speaks reams. Silence of the liberals? Oh yes, all of that, and more -- censorship by omission, a partisan press in protective mode -- a miserable day, come to think, for shameless mainstream journalism.
Postscript: Ellison's fellow Dems, to date including even Congressman Sabo, have not leaped to support their party's candidate. Why? Because, like Rep. Cynthia McKinney, he's a likely embarrassment to their once-noble party? Again, the silence of the liberals is deafening.
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Larson is a former association executive and business magazine editor. He is not the cartoonist of the same name. Larson is a regular columnist at Intellectual Conservative. outing@earthlink.net
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.