Zzzzzz: Strib Fifth CD Endorsement
Hang on to your breakfast; the Strib endorses...
...Keith Ellison
Critics have tried to paint the Minneapolis DFLer as a radical and a divider. That simply doesn't square with the view of people who know him.
Yeah, but it's all of us who
don't know him that have the questions...
...that the Strib doens't seem interested in answering. Scott Johnson has spent much of 2006 documenting the things the Strib doesn't think are important enough for you, the majority that doesn't know Keith Ellison, to know.
Colleagues at the Legislature describe a congenial and productive lawmaker. Fellow lawyers say Ellison is a hardworking and talented attorney.
Yeah, but the isn't that Ellison is stupid or unaccomplished. Merely that he's been intensely disingenuous about his past as a supporter of an antisemitic radical group. A simple renunciation of the Nations of Islam might go a long way toward burying the issue - but that's not been forthcoming, and it's not expected.
We are mindful that Ellison has a history of carelessness that is more than personal peccadillo -- unpaid parking tickets, late taxes, missed deadlines for campaign finance documents. He has promised to run a tighter ship, and he will have to if he wants to secure the confidence of Fifth District constituents and survive the brutal politics of Washington.
Unstated; the Strib made
damn sure the allegations get in the way of "secur[ing] the confidence" of the voters, just in case.
The real drama in this race is the way Republican Alan Fine has discredited his own campaign with overwrought attacks on Ellison,
No.
The real drama is the way the Strib put away its "journalist" hat to become a tacit arm of the Ellison campaign and the DFL, by:
- Running a defamatory-by-omission hit piece on Fine
- Not deigning to accurately report Ellison's own legal jhistory, to say nothing of...
- ignoring Ellison's history with the Nations of Islam.
Some enterprising reporter, by the way, needs to ask a question or two about Strib reporter Rochelle Olson's relationship to Keith and Kim Ellison. Observers say it seemed a bit...convivial, for a relationship that, supposedly, is supposed to be adversarial.
More on that, hopefully, later.
Posted by Mitch at
October 26, 2006 07:36 AM
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The big question is which of Ellison's opponents have the best chance of beating him: Lee or Fine.
Posted by: Spectator at October 26, 2006 07:46 AMSo according to the strib, "Critics have tried to paint the Minneapolis DFLer as a radical and a divider. That simply doesn't square with the view of people who know him."
Why don't the strib's editors give Bachman the same benefit of looking at her with the eyes of her friends?
"We are mindful that Ellison has a history of carelessness that is more than personal peccadillo -- unpaid parking tickets, late taxes, missed deadlines for campaign finance documents. He has promised to run a tighter ship, and he will have to if he wants to secure the confidence of Fifth District constituents and survive the brutal politics of Washington."
This is the most condescending statement I've read in a long time. He did this stuff as a private citizen but as a powerfull congressman he won't? And 'brutal politics of Washington'? How long did traficant's constituents send him to DC?
Posted by: Terry at October 26, 2006 08:51 AMI have this image of the strib editors beaming as they rub Ellison's head for luck.
Spectator's quesetion was who has a better chance of beating Ellison - Fine or the lovely Tammy Lee.
The answer, is neither. Mitch puts it well, the DFL could indorse a dog and get 60% of the vote in this liberal hellhole, that I plan on leaving as soon as I can save themoney.
Posted by: CD5 Inmate at October 26, 2006 08:54 AMI think Cindy Sheehan is still between jobs. She could be Ellison's Chief of Staff. And just fill in the rest with those who've gotten fired from Air America....
Posted by: RBMN at October 26, 2006 10:11 AM