New Congressman Ellison Snubs Bush

I think I'm going to like this Keith Ellison guy.

Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, just became the first Muslim ever elected to the House of Representatives and he started his orientation week on Capitol Hill by overtly snubbing… George W. Bush!

All incoming House freshman had been invited to the White House Monday night for a private reception with Bush, and Ellison just flat-out decided to skip it in favor of what he considered a more important event with organized labor.

"I went to the AFL-CIO reception, because I wanted to meet and greet leaders of labor, and get to know them," said Ellison on Tuesday. "Those are the people who I came here to support."

"It wasn't even a close call," Ellison continued. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet the president. He's the president, and I respect him in his role as the president, but I have exceedingly sharp differences with him on a policy level."

Hey, if I were a new Congressman, I wouldn’t even stop to help if Bush had a flat tire on the side of the road, much less go and break bread with him. What exactly would we exchange pleasantries about? How he spent the last two months lying about Democratic Congressional candidates? How he's ruined our global reputation and driven our nation into massive debt? How he's responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 of our troops?

He wouldn’t enjoy that any more than I would and I'd hate to force the Secret Service to give me the Bum's Rush.

And Ellison has started attracting the bigotry of the right-wing talking heads before he even formally takes office. He made the mistake of appearing on conservative blowhard Glenn Beck's CNN show on Tuesday and have a look at the question Beck had the nerve to ask Ellison for the crime of being a Muslim:

"I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'"

Ellison took the high road, saying simply ""the people of the Fifth Congressional District know that I have a deep love and affection for my country. There's no one who is more patriotic than I am. And so, you know, I don't need to -- need to prove my patriotic stripes."

"Prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

Do you think the ignorant Beck realizes what a profoundly un-American thing that is to say? I don’t either.

But welcome to Washington politics, Mr. Ellison!