Jan

4

The first Brilliant Political Move Award of the Year goes to…

Posted by Little Miss Know it All

January 4, 2007 |

awards.jpg Little Miss Know it All would like to give out an award today for a brilliant, savvy political move.  To Congressman Keith Ellison (D) I award the Best “Tttthhwwwwppp” in your Opponents Face Award.

storyellisonap.jpgSee, last month Keith Ellison, a Muslim, announced that he would take his first swearing in to Congress using a Koran instead of the ceremonial bible.   Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode (R) was livid, making a big media storm out of the fact that the founding fathers were Christians, and isn’t our country falling apart?  You would’ve thought that Ellison’s action was the swearing in of Osama….

A little side note, there is no bible used in the official swearing in.  Its a mass process–all 400 + members of the House are sworn in in unison.  Many of them do private, ceremonial swearing-ins later, for the benefit of the press.  That is when bibles, Korans, Torahs, whatever book of faith, or none at all, are used.

Well, Ellison turned it all on its head.  Today, during his ceremonial swearing-in, he will be using a Koran that was in the personal library of Thomas Jefferson.  You don’t get more founding father than Thomas Jefferson, and to use a founding father that is the personal hero of most Virginians, especially one from the home district of Mr. Virgil Goode, well, these are the kind of political twists most politicos dream of.

 Hats off to the new Congressman!

Read more about it at WashingtonPost.com


Comments

3 Comments so far

  1. Joe on January 4, 2007 3:00 pm

    Great find, and very funny….

  2. Batocchio on January 18, 2007 8:12 pm

    It was a truly brilliant move, since it also exposes Goode’s ignorance of the U.S. Constitution and the principles America was founded on. I wonder if he knows that Jefferson was a Deist and wrote his own version of the Gospels because he liked Jesus’ teachings but didn’t hold with all the divinity stuff? Or that Jefferson, with Madison, wrote to craft the highly influential Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom? It’s not as if the founding fathers were of a uniform mind on all matters, but most certainly they’re weren’t on religion. There’s a reason they didn’t establish a state religion, did pen that pesky First Amendment, and established statutes like Virginia’s. For all the flag-waving many of them do, bigots are never very up on their basic civics, let alone their history… ;-)

  3. Barry Leiba on February 8, 2007 12:13 am

    See my post from early December, “I swear…“, for comments on why we shouldn’t care what book he swears on.

    And I agree: it was a very nice touch to use the Jefferson book.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « Coming out of the woodwork… | Ahhhh….bliss » »