Virgil Goode, a Republican representative from Virginia, has his panties in a terribly tight little knot.
He recently sent a letter to Virginian voters regarding a colleague, Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat (excerpt; via):
When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
Oh my my my. Rep. Ellison wants to use a Koran when he’s sworn in, rather than a Bible, which everyone knows is God’s One And Only Holy Word. (Everyone who isn’t Muslim, of course. Or Hindu. Or Buddhist. Or Jewish, at least the second half.)
But he doesn’t stop there. In literally the next sentence he makes a baffling segue.
We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.
Is Goode seriously suggesting that Rep. Ellison is an illegal immigrant? Is he seriously putting forth the claim that Minnesota elected an illegal immigrant? Or is he instead suggesting that illegal immigrants were somehow allowed to vote and elected a Muslim?
To be fair, I’m not sure Goode himself knows what he’s suggesting. He almost seems to be saying that the voters of Minnesota elected Ellison by some kind of bizarre and tragic mistake, or that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.*
What’s really happening, I suspect, is that Goode just doesn’t have much practice at demagoguery. He’s an amateur bigot, one who’s most accustomed to letting his bigotry show only when he’s in the presence of the Good Ole Boys, all of whom nod and agree solemnly with one another whenever any of them says anything about how those people are roonin’ Uhmurika. Which of those people those people might be varies with the bombast-cast of the moment pouring forth from radio commentators, but whichever of those people it is, it surely isn’t anyone whose dainty, Christian-baptized skin is not lily-white.
Put another way, Goode has no skills whatsoever at hiding his bigotry, and has no idea how to phrase it in such a way that it’s nearly undetectable. Pat Buchanan and Lou Sheldon are much better at it than Goode is.
Here’s what the accused has to say on the subject:
Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode’s comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. “I’m not an immigrant,” added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. “I’m an African-American.”
Heh, there’s an understated fact here. Ellison is descended from slave stock. At some point in the past his ancestor was stolen from Africa and pressed into service for a white man. But Ellison appears to be a class act — not only does he sidestep his own painful heritage; he extends an olive branch.
“I’m looking forward to making friends with Representative Goode, or at least getting to know him,” Mr. Ellison said, speaking by telephone from Minneapolis. “I want to let him know that there’s nothing to fear. The fact that there are many different faiths, many different colors and many different cultures in America is a great strength.”
Back to Goode’s screed; in light of it I find Ellison’s forebearance to be a little awe-inspiring:
I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
So … let’s see here. Muslims (who are facing a stiff climb and have been for five years now) come to this country to … what, exactly, obtain work, get a decent education, raise families and contribute to the tax base … oh, and to the electorate? They come here to enjoy the very American values that Goode touts — the value of freedom, hard work, individual integrity and honesty … the value of human rights, of human dignity.
Guess which of the above issues is of real concern to Goode.
Maybe he’d be happier if there was a law against immigrants voting, or being elected for that matter. Or better still, maybe we could just stop Muslims from voting, since they can’t be trusted to choose values such as compassion or social responsibility, which we all know are exclusively Christian.
Hey, why not, it’s been done before:
The September 1935 Nuremberg Laws abolished Jewish citizenship, voting rights, and the right to hold public office.
And who was Chancellor of Germany when that law went into effect?
Back to Mr. Goode.
The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”
That seems like a strange profession of faith; it suggests that as soon as he’s out of office he’ll put up any old holy book that suits him. Makes you wonder just how ironclad his beliefs really are.
Goode is responding now to the furor his idiotic comments have raised.
ROCKY MOUNT — U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. will not apologize to Islamic groups for a letter he wrote that decries Muslim immigration to America, his press aide said yesterday.
Oops. I guess I thought maybe he’d had a chance to sober up and was going to retract his bigoted and xenophobic ramblings, but it seems not. Apparently he’s less concerned about public opinion than Michael Richards was, and since he’s so clearly unrepentant, I don’t think he has the problem Richards might have. That is, I think Goode really is a bigot, and not simply mentally ill.
“He stands by the letter,” said Linwood Duncan, aide to the 5th District Republican. Duncan refused to say more.
If only Mr. Goode had adopted this close-lipped policy sooner, perhaps all of this could have been avoided. But then, maybe not. One thing is sure about bigotry: No matter how hard the bigot tries, he just can’t keep his vicious hatred inside. Somewhere down the line he opens his mouth and spews a torrent of bile.
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* Which is plausible, after all. Remember Governor The Body Ventura?
