Invisible man Keith Ellison, not Ralph Ellison of the non-fiction classic, The Invisible Man, is heir-apparent to a Democratic seat in the 110th Congress to be seated on January 7, 2007.

A Muslim by conversion in college, he’s a shoo-in. Forget the midterm election. Ellison won the primary in Minnesota’s “safe,” bluer-than-blue Fifth District. Keith Ellison — mark the name well. He will succeed the retiring, reliably liberal Representative Martin O. Sabo (D-MN). Bet the ranch on that.  It’s all a formality on November 7; Ellison by a landslide. 

Ellison is to be the first Muslim in Congress. Also, the first former Nation of Islam firebrand to join its august ranks. He will bring to his new job tons of baggage, much that mainstream media dared not to relate. The media are covering for him.

Ellison’s past is well-nigh invisible to mainstream media. He has lashed out publicly at an America he apparently loathes, at 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 this up.  It’s all true.   

Ellison has said he’d quit Iraq, and support impeachment of President Bush. He has called for freedom for former local cop killers, for convicted gang members, and for ex-SLA member Kathleen Soliah (Sara Jane Olson of St. Paul). She merely planted bombs under L.A. 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" and "Keith Ellison Muhammad." Same guy. All supported, at one time or another, the hateful, racist messages of “Mr. Hakim’s” hero, “Minister Farrakahn,” tribal chieftain of the Nation of Islam.

No less than the head of the Hamas-supporting Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, boosts Ellison for Congress. Mr. Awad appeared at an Ellison 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, kindly, tolerant of whites, especially Jews, and keen on winning the war on terrorism. Says so to local reporters; they parrot his words uncritically, nearly religiously, as if he‘s some sort of liberal icon.

Ellison’s Republican opponent, a scholarly University of Minnesota professor, Dr. Allan Fine, questions Ellison’s  dubious past. For this exercise of free speech, Prof. Fine, a Jew, is maliciously assailed. He is called ugly things, such as “smearer,” by partisan editorial writers.  He is called bigot by the Democratic Party state chair, that racial inflammation his rallying cry, evidently, for the base, feeding on public ignorance.

Only ones to expose Ellison’s shady past are Minnesota blogs, notably Power Line, at

www.powerlineblog.com. (Go there. Type “Keith Ellison” in its Search box. Presto! Information spills out, what media choose to ignore.  Why?, is the question.)

Prof. Fine has the audacity to call Ellison “unfit to represent the voters of the Fifth District,” roughly Minneapolis and an inner ring of suburbs. Rather than address issues raised by Prof. Fine, the ultraliberal Minneapolis Star Tribune attacks the messenger, engaging in mindless, juvenile name-calling.

Thankfully, a sole Star Tribune columnist, a voice in the wilderness, points out Ellison’s warts. Katherine Kersten, formerly with the Council on the American Experiment, a Minnesota think tank, lays it on the line in her June 8, 2006, column. As Power Line does, repeatedly, 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…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.’

Power Line, the blog, captures what the two Twin Cities dailies, plus other deficient (scared?) media fail 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 Minnesota locals. They see daily the dereliction of duty of politically correct journalists in agenda-driven media.

Some hint Star Tribune’s hard-left editorial board was at least vaguely aware of Ellison’s dark past–readers of Power Line, are they?  The newspaper did NOT endorse Ellison in the primary.

No, their nod went to his primary opponent, Mike Erlandson, former chief of staff for the retiring 28-year Congressman Sabo. In praise of Erlandson’s candidacy, not a discouraging word — it’s “mum!” — is said about Ellison’s past.  What editors did NOT say speaks reams. Silence of the liberals? Oh, it’s all of that, and more–censorship by omission, a partisan press now in full protection mode, quite a miserable day, actually, for mainstream journalism. 

Postscript: Ellison’s fellow Democrats, to date including even Congressman Sabo, have not leaped to defend their party’s candidate. Why? Because, like Rep. Cynthia McKinney, he’s an embarrassment to the  once-noble party? Again, silence of the liberals is deafening.

Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.

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About the author

Gary Larson
Gary Larson is a retired newspaper and business magazine editor and a former Stars & Stripes reporter for its Far East edition in the mid-1960s. He is not the retired cartoonist of the same name.