From the Ellison file

From the Ellison file

Power Line - Saturday November 19, 2016

by Scott Johnson

(Scott Johnson)

The ascent of Keith Ellison to the possible leadership of the Democratic Party is a fateful event. Here is a man who was an active local leader of the racist and anti-Semitic cult known as the Nation of Islam until some time past his first attempt at political office as a Democrat, yet who has never acknowledged, accounted or apologized for his activities and expressed beliefs on behalf of the cult. Rather, as I recounted in the Weekly Standard article “Louis Farrakhan’s first congressman” (2006), Ellison has explained them away with lies and deceptions. 

In her Jerusalem Post column “The Ellison challenge,” Caroline Glick builds on my research to elaborate on the meaning of Ellison’s rise for any decent Democrat with eyes to see. Joel Mowbray has more to the same effect in his Daily Caller column on Ellison.

I have taken a deep dive this morning into my thick file on Ellison. At the bottom I found an email from the University of Minnesota Daily opinion editor who published Ellison’s columns peddling the Nation of Islam line under the name “Keith Hakim” in the school year 1989-90. The email is dated September 13, 2006, and was written to a friendly acquaintance of mine who was helping Ellison’s Republican opponent in the election. The email reads in part:

I was the U of M opinions [sic] editor who published Keith Hakim/Ellison’s pieces way back when and wrote a counterpoint that dealt w/the fallout. I was in the middle of things.

It’s been a LONG time and I don’t know if he’s changed but the Keith Ellison/Hakim I knew then is completely unsuited for public office. I hope the Republican wins and I’m a Democrat….

Some facts about Keith from somebody who knows:

* Keith promised my editors he was “in the middle of a name change” so they forced me to publish under that dumb pseudonym, Keith E. Hakim. Like [his unpaid] traffic tickets and taxes, I suppose he “never got around to it.” This seems to be a pattern with Keith: ignoring promises and obligations.

The old opinion editor had moved to Florida. I followed up with a telephone interview. He told me that Ellison never said he was a Muslim, that he was the leader of the Nation of Islam on campus. My notes add: “he was was the Nation of Islam rep…hatemonger.”

  

Read More Here