Don’t you just love irony?
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.
Rep. Goode — who took Rep. Ellison’s election as an opportunity to warn his constituents that unless we “wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office” — represents Jefferson’s birthplace of Albemarle County Virginia.
Hmm. If we don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there might be more Thomas Jeffersons elected to office.