Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) isn’t sweating the mocking his emotional testimony before Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) hearings on Muslim extremism last week generated from the right.
Asked by TPM Wednesday about the drubbing he’s received from conservative pundits since he teared up before King’s panel, Ellison basically said, what else is new?
“Well, you know, I don’t anticipate some people will appreciate everything that I say and stand for,” he said. “But I’ll say this: American people realize that when we say freedom and justice for all, that means all. You know, Muslims too.”
Ellison said it’s open season on the right when it comes to Muslims.
“Look there is an organized anti-Muslim industry in the United States,” he said. “It’s Pam Geller, it’s Robert Spencer, it’s Steve Emerson…it’s Frank Gaffney. They’re well-known entities.”
“They sell books doing this, they tell people they’re counter-terrorism experts, and you know,” Ellison added. “But what does that have to do with the whole economic discussion we’ve been having?”
Looking back on the King hearings, which generated more controversy about King than they exposed secret Muslim extremism in America, Ellison said they showed that the conservative anti-Muslim machine he describled is not the mainstream of the country.
“You know it still doesn’t matter,” Ellison said of the mockers and the hearing. “Because a lot of good people stood up. A lot of people who are not Muslims stood up and said this is bad, this is ugly and we don’t like it.”
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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