Our Rep Strikes Again

Man, is Keith playing this like a master or what? Virgil is so outmatched here, it ain't even funny. Washington Post (01.03.05), via Think Progress:

"Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values. Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson." But It's Thomas Jefferson's Koran!

"'He wanted to use a Koran that was special,' said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison's 5th District, was happy to help." "Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages." Virgil is such a fucking tool, it's unbelievable. Keith continues to make him look like an even bigger moron than he already is, as difficult as that may be.