Most freshman Democratic members of the House of Representatives attended last week's reception at the White House with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, White House political czar Karl Rove and others who had just finished plotting and executing unrelenting attacks campaigns on the newcomers. But the target of some of the campaign season's crudest attacks, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, had better things to do.
Ellison, the first Muslim to ever be elected to Congress, skipped the private reception at the White House in order to attend a reception organized by the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.
"I went to the AFL-CIO reception, because I wanted to meet and greet leaders of labor, and get to know them," explained Ellison, who won an intense Democratic primary and then the general election with strong union backing. "Those are the people who I came here to support." Was it hard to give up a chance to rub elbows with the president and vice president?
"It wasn't even a close call," Ellison told the Associated Press. "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."
"We are being led by a president who believes he has a right to send us to war based on a lie, that it's O.K. to torture prisoners and to spy on Americans. His administration has given sweetheart deals and no-bid contracts to private companies and then looked the other way when those profiteers cannot account for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars," Ellison said during the campaign. And, yet, where is the outrage? Where are the leaders who are willing to stand up and demand accountability?"
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7 comments:
Well good for Ellison spending time with the people who supported and worked to get him elected. It is a good sign he will work for the people first.
A man who takes a stand for the people he serves. I know Bush was clueless as to Mr. Ellison's reasons. As Bush is so stupid and needs Connie to explain Ellison just bi--h slapped him in public.
I just saw an interview with M. Cherif Bassiouni where he does not feel the current administration has the intelliect to deal with the Iraq situation and called Rice is an opportunist.
Cherif Bassiouni
Chicago Native:
Bassiouni should called Condi: incompentent and nonqualified as the former National Security Adviser and current Secretary of State.. She is on the beck and call of the Gerbil. If the Gerbil has a hang nail, she is there with him.
He was trying to be as nice as possible considering he was part of the UN and got the Nobel peace prize. But from the interview he was less than impressed with her and Bush (Cheney's puppet, therefor Cheney)and had mentioned that Sadam Hussein had emptied the prisons out of 80K prisoner, 20K of them core criminals, about 3 weeks before the fall of Bagdad, that Rumsfields biggest mistake was ignoring all these hardcore criminals loose, and just concentrated on Al Quaeda, and thought of these core criminals as police action that was not necessary to police. According to Bassiouni this has been the biggest problem for the Iraqi people is all these "core criminals" loose and terrorizing citizens,getting ahold of weapons, bigger than Al Quaeda, which was not a problem when we invaded. So his biggest critism was of Rumsfield was not taking police action on these criminials.
"that Rumsfields biggest mistake was ignoring all these hardcore criminals loose, and just concentrated on Al Quaeda,"
Chicago Native:
That is because Rummy never served in the military or in combat. He was just a teacher. And notice that the other two amigos: Cheney (unbelievable 5 deferments) and the Gerbil (a National guard drunk and cokehead that never served in combat) gave their strategy of the war in Iraq. Two people who never served in combat. That is what we had in office for 6 years. It is not surprising about Rummy's action. In fact, it is not surprising about Cheney and the Gerbil. They ran the country like a corporate business and no of them don't have lick of experience in military...
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