What so funny ’bout peace, love and CAIR?

Today Rochelle Olson continues her fawning coverage of Keith Ellison in “New representative does double duty.” Olson notes Ellison’s upcoming debut as the keynote speaker at CAIR’s annual dinner next Saturday night. She doesn’t mention the $50,000 or so that Ellison’s friends at CAIR funnelled into his campaign, or the bundled contributions that CAIR executive director Nihad Awad delivered to him before the September 12 primary.
Olson asserts that “CAIR and Awad were dragged into the campaign spotlight because Ellison’s opponents tried to tie them to terrorism.” Contrary to the implication of Olson’s rhetoric, tying CAIR to terrorism isn’t much of a stretch. It is the successor to a Hamas front group, Ellison’s friend Awad endorsed Hamas’s resistance to Israel over the PLO’s Oslo approach, and several of CAIR’s officers have been convicted of terrorist activities.
Olson notes that Ellison ran as a “peace first” candidate and quotes Ellison: “I’m going to say something corny; I believe I’m here to put love in the world. I’m trying to make a positive impression on history, not a negative one. I’m not going to lash out at somebody because they don’t see the bigger picture.” What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and CAIR?
Ellison seeks a seat on the House Judiciary Committee. There he would be strategically positioned to support John Conyers’s proposed HR 228. HR 228 is styled as a bill to promote religiouis tolerance, but it singles out Islam as needing special protection and provides that “it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form.” Robert Spencer connects the dots in today’s FrontPage column “CAIR’s Congress.” See also Joel Mowbray’s November 6 FrontPage column “CAIR’s congressman.”
Yesterday my journalist friend commended the Star Tribune on its excellent use of white space. I do believe the Star Tribune would be greatly improved by substituting white space for Rochelle Olson’s continuing coverage of Keith Ellison.