Who is Keith Ellison? (21)

This past Friday the executive director of CAIR was the featured guest at a fundraiser for endorsed DFL Fifth District congressional candidate Keith Ellison in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. We wrote about Awad and the fundraiser here. Ellison did not disclose the event on his Web site and not a single Minnesota news organ stirred itself to cover the event. Something’s happening here, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

By contrast, Michael Brodkorb has been a key source of information at Minnesota Democrats Exposed. Last night Brodkorb took a look at Ellison’s most recent FEC report. He reports that Ellison “received $2,000 from Nihad Awad.” This week’s American Jewish World endorses Ellison for Congress in the upcoming September 12 primary. I should like to think that if the Twin Cities press had done its job covering Ellison, neither the AJW nor Ellison’s other Democratic Jewish supporters would have been able to embarrass themselves as they have.

PAUL adds: It’s comforting, at least, to believe that.

UPDATE: Ellison’s fundraiser with Awad is mentioned at the bottom of today’s Star Tribune story by Sharon Schmickle: “Fifth District candidates differ on how, not whether, to withdraw from Iraq.” Schmickle refers to Democratic candidate Michael Erlandson, writing:

Erlandson also accused Ellison of appearing recently with a supporter of the Palestinian group Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. Erlandson’s aide said he was referring to Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington D.C., who attended an Ellison fundraiser last Friday in the Twin Cities sponsored by a group of Muslim businessmen.

Ibrahim Hooper, the council’s spokesman, denounced Erlandson’s remark: “It is unfortunate that a candidate for public office would stoop to anti-Muslim bigotry … by using long-refuted smears. Neither the council nor Mr. Awad supports any terrorist group anywhere in the world.”

As for Awad, Ibrahim Hooper and CAIR, Schmickle leaves it, Star Tribune-style, at that. I guess she couldn’t be troubled to check out Awad’s previous connections to, or avowals of support for, Hamas, or his appearance on a stage with the flag of Hezbollah. She’s just a reporter. As for Erlandson, someone in his camp must be a Power Line reader.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses