DFL to Rescue Ellison?

Katherine Kersten submitted a piece about the controversial DFL endorsed candidate for CD-5. I am not a huge Kersten fan, but I highly recommened reading this one. Here is what Gary from KvM had to say:

A little birdie informed me that the DFL intends to come to the rescue of DFL congressional candidate Keith Ellison — he of the history of defending anti-semitic and racial separatist statements.

It seems someone took my “condolences can be sent to Ellison HQ” in regards to the death of al-Zarqawi — clearly meant to draw parallels to the recently dispatched Al Qaeda leader and the 5th District candidate’s shared history of anti-semitism — so literally that the DFL is considering going to bat for the embattled Ellison from assaults by “Kennedy surrogates”.

While they’re at it, the DFL may want to take a stab at explaining away Ms. Klobuchar’s lack of protection for U.S. troops.

And, let me also include some excerpts from the Kersten column. (OK... it is the whole thing.)

Imagine that a Republican seeks his party's endorsement for the U.S. House of Representatives, despite having been allied with a white supremacist organization just a decade earlier. Imagine that this candidate had once sarcastically proposed setting aside certain states for white citizens and had shared a stage with a speaker known for excoriating Jews as "bloodsuckers."

You're right. That man wouldn't get his party's endorsement. He would probably want to go into hiding after the howl of negative media coverage.

So how did we get Keith Ellison?

State Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis is the DFL-endorsed candidate for the Fifth District congressional seat. In this DFL bastion, that means that -- barring a primary loss -- Ellison will succeed Martin Sabo when Congress reconvenes next year.

Ellison's background is, shall we say, unorthodox. He is a former outspoken supporter of Louis Farrakhan's notorious Nation of Islam, a virulently anti-white, anti-Semitic organization once led by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad.

Ellison came to public attention in 1990, when, using the name Keith E. Hakim, he defended Farrakhan in a Minnesota Daily article while a law student at the University of Minnesota. In another 1990 Daily column, Ellison claimed that splitting America into two nations, with five Southern states set aside for blacks, would be preferable to "liberal social programs."

"Black-white interaction would be voluntary instead of compelled," he wrote.

In 1995, Ellison helped organize Minnesota participation in the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., which the Nation of Islam convened. At a fundraiser for the event, he shared the stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who described himself as Farrakhan's "flamethrower." In 1994, according to the Washington Post, Khalid had called Jews "the bloodsuckers of the black nation."

Here in Minneapolis, at the event where Ellison shared the stage with him, Khalid 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."

During the 1990s, Ellison articulated extreme views on other occasions. In 1992, he spoke at a Minneapolis 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 that Jews were "among the most racist white people."

In 1998, the Star Tribune described Ellison as "well-known in the black community as ... a supporter of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam." Ellison says he can't recall seeing the article or seeking a correction. No correction was published.

Last week, Ellison moved to do damage control, as his background came under increasing scrutiny. He only had ties to the Nation of Islam for about 18 months in the mid-1990s, he told the Star Tribune. In a letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council, Ellison repudiated Farrakhan's and Khalid Muhammad's views, and rejected racism, anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination. "This has always been my position," he wrote.

Reached Wednesday, Ellison said he broke his ties with the Nation of Islam when "it became clear to me that their message of empowerment intertwined with more negative messages."

Can people change? Of course they can. Ellison now says he is fit to serve all of the Fifth District's citizens.

But Minnesotans are right to question his candor and judgment. Apparently, Ellison has not been fully candid about the duration of his support for the Nation of Islam. In fact, today he insists that he never shared the organization's extremist views. The record raises questions about that.

There's a strange irony here. In April 2004, Minnesota's public safety commissioner at the time, Rich Stanek, resigned after acknowledging making racist comments in 1992. At a news conference, Keith Ellison and other black leaders condemned Stanek's remarks and vowed to fight his confirmation.

Stanek repudiated the comments and said he had changed. Nevertheless, Ellison didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. "He's definitely one to hold other people accountable, so I held him accountable," Ellison told the Star Tribune.

Now it's Ellison's turn.