Saturday, March 12, 2011

Ellison at the King hearings

The hearing on radicalization of American Muslims held by Peter King (R-NY) included a sobbing presentation by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) about Mohammed Salman Hamdani, an American Muslim killed on 9/11 while trying to rescue others.

Ellison said Hamdani had been smeared by people who accused him of conspiring with the terrorists. Problem is, the story was completely false. Here's how Matthew Schaffer describes the true situation:

"... six weeks after the September 11 attacks — before Hamdani’s remains were identified, which Ellison implies to be the turning point of public perception — Congress signed the PATRIOT Act into law with this line included: 'Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing.' That is, Hamdani was actually singled out for particular high honors among the thousands of victims of the September 11 attacks."

So why would Ellison invert the truth like that? Presumably because that was his strongest argument. Truly pathetic.

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