Garrison Keillor says Keith Ellison, 'lackluster black Muslim,' is wrong for DNC chair

[TexasTowelie]

Garrison Keillor, the beloved "Prairie Home Companion" creator as homespun as hot dish and Christmas sweaters, has a mighty case of post-election nihilism.

In a recent editorial for the Washington Post, Keillor expounds on his general loss of faith in the American electorate, from the Republicans who protest-voted for a heart attack-inducing whoopee cushion of a president, to the Democrats wandering lost in the woods.

It’s the written equivalent of a temper tantrum, and specifically saves a few clumsy jabs for Minnesota’s own Keith Ellison.

“A lackluster black Muslim congressman from Minneapolis is a leading candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the person who will need to connect with disaffected workers in Youngstown and Pittsburgh,” Keillor writes. “Why not a ballet dancer or a Buddhist monk?”

Read more: http://www.citypages.com/news/garrison-keillor-says-keith-ellison-lackluster-black-muslim-is-wrong-for-dnc-chair/406052705

[samir.g]

1. Garrison Keillor should retire quietly

[LuvLoogie]

2. I read GK's column. The tone was appropriate. Wry and unsentimental. But poetic.

I would have liked to see Howard Dean back.

[brush]

4. Was the phrase "lackluster black Muslim" in the column?

That's hardly appropriate.

Continues to amaze me how people who should know better make stupid, insensitive, and in this case, ignorant comments.

[LuvLoogie]

5. Here's the passage. Read the column.

He is a showman, and oddity has paid off for him, as it did for Lady Gaga and Gorgeous George and Liberace. But the public demands new tricks. Today, railing at the journalists who slavishly cover him is, like bear-baiting or lion-taming, entertainment enough, but by next fall he will need to pull canaries out of his ears, and by 2018 he’ll be diving on horseback from a high tower into a pool of water while playing “Malagueña” on a trumpet. Meanwhile, the Democrats wander in the woods, walking into trees. A wealthy San Francisco liberal is reelected as minority leader in the House, having flung millions into the wind and gotten skunked in 2014 and drubbed this fall, and a lackluster black Muslim congressman from Minneapolis is a leading candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the person who will need to connect with disaffected workers in Youngstown and Pittsburgh. Why not a ballet dancer or a Buddhist monk?

[brush]

8. Like I said . . .

It continues to amaze me that people who should know better . . .

He should restrain his attempts at witticism if he doesn't know better than to write "black Muslim" instead of "Muslim".

Why is Ellison's race even mentioned, and why doesn't Keillor know better than to phrase Ellison as a black Muslim (a clumsy writing error that seems to refer to the maligned sect here in America that is an offshoot of Islam?). Or maybe that was intentional.

That phrase apparently was not run past an editor — too cute and insensitive in an attempt to be witty?

And why is Ellison referred to as lackluster? That, IMO, is another unforced error by Keillor?

[LuvLoogie]

10. I think he paints Pelosi as ineffective as well, perhaps even more harshly.

And I don't think this column focuses on whether or not GK thinks Ellison is an appropriate pick for DNC chair. He notes that House leadership is not changing when perhaps it should. He is commenting on the general clutter of the aftermath.

If Ellison's star sank as he sought the DNC leadership, it wasn't due to GKs column, but to Ellison's own unforced errors--for which he has appologized, but has impacted him negatively anyway.

Lackluster, boring, dull, uncharismatic is subjective. GK is a commentator, a creative writer. I'm glad he's still writing.

[brush]

11. Lackluster is subjective but black Muslim is not. That seems an intentional and sneaky swipe.

He's too experienced a writer to not know what the combination of those two words connote.

[LuvLoogie]

12. I think a writer like GK is not a careless writer. I'd say his word choice

is deliberate, yet elegant. He understands that the phrase is loaded, but consider it in the context of observation and the position that Ellison sought. That you have a defensive negative reaction to the phrase Black Muslim is the point. He adds lackluster because, in the aftermath, Ellison lacks the luster to overcome the biased weight of his own identity politics in the field beyond Minneapolis.

But, this is my interpretation of what GK is emoting, and it IS an emotional essay. It's poetic and somewhat cathartic. I think your criticism of his phrasing is valid. I think Lady Gaga might take exception to her art being equated to Trumps spewings as well, given her progressive cred.

[brush]

15. Okay, we're somewhat in agreement. the phrase is loaded, and I still say he shouldn't have gone ther

He didn't have to. Ellison, whether it's right or wrong, was not going to get the RNC gig most likely because of the optics presented by, unfortunately, his religion.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. I believe that the next DNC Chair should be a full-time DNC Chair...

Dr. Dean accomplished so much because he didn't have to worry about being re-elected while he did his 50-State thing... The next DNC Chair should be able to give as much guff as they get on any interview show - I'm sick of being represented by overly polite (Donna Brazile) or mealy-mouth spokespeople in desperate need of dental work and hair care (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz).

$hit! Make Kathy Griffin the next DNC Chair! Tom Hanks - Dammit! Who couldn't be won over by Tom Hanks?

[LuvLoogie]

7. Maybe we could get Shakira to become a citizen. I'm serious. She'd be great.

There are acouple people who call in regularly to WCPT Chicago that I think would be great strategists if not motivators.

[TheDebbieDee]

9. She's Columbian, isn't she? We'd be able to tell whether or not

she was lying by the way she moves her hips!

I just saw about 40 seconds of video of Denzel Washington telling a member of the press that the US press has fallen down on the job with regards to the election. He said that there is too much information available and that the media only cares about being the first to report it, not whether or not it accurate.

Mr. Washington said a person that doesn't read the papers or watch the news is uninformed.... A person who does read the papers or watches the news is ill-informed. I think Dems need more folks like Mr. Washington who can get face time on talk shows who say thins like this...

[LuvLoogie]

13. The Dems need a tactical "Man on Fire" to kick ass, take names and read epitaphs.

And Danzig agrees that Shakira motivates

[bravenak]

6. I might not like the phrasing but I agree with his assessment

[RedWedge]

14. The column was a lot of eloquent whining, as usual.