Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn) was keynote speaker at the Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium this past weekend in Illinois. Michael Drakulich of the Southtown Star reports:

He [Ellison]said teachings in the Koran could help the racial divide in America. And he encouraged students to embrace and answer questions about their faith, even if those questions seem repetitive.

No problem there.

"Let's use what we have, what our faith is all about, to help America get over the barrier of racial division and false barriers based on color," he said.

Sounds good.

Ellison went on to say if more people knew of what Islam had to teach, the controversy created by statements from presidential candidate Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, might not have occurred.

Come again? What does the teaching of Islam have to do with Reverend Wright's paranoid proclamations of anti-Americanism? This seems like a total disconnect.

The news article concludes with this:

Ellison took questions from the audience. At one point, he was asked whether Republican presidential candidate John McCain should be forgiven for saying he would never vote for a Muslim presidential candidate. (ED NOTE: For the record, McCain did not say he would "never vote for a Muslim presidential candidate." McCain initially said he would "prefer" a president with a grounding in his faith - i.e. Christian - and then also clarified that remark by saying he would vote for a Muslim if "he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and to defend our political values.")

He [Ellison] reiterated Islam's teaching of mercy.

"That's what it means to be Muslim. To want the best for everyone, even if they want to chop you up into little pieces," he said.

What an overly dramatic - not to mention terribly ironic - choice of phrase by Ellison.