Ellison Was Defeated by His Own Actions Not by Any Smear

by Alan M. Dershowitz • February 27, 2017 at 3:00 pm

The close vote by the Democratic National Committee to reject Keith Ellison as its chairperson was a victory for basic decency and a defeat for the kind of bigotry represented by Ellison's past associations with Louis Farrakhan and his current voting record against Israel's Iron Dome. Ellison's loss is not attributable to any "smear campaign," as some of his supporters have falsely alleged, but rather to his own actions, both past and present. Would anyone call it a smear if a candidate's history of sexism, racism or homophobia had been exposed? Why then it is a smear to have raised questions based on Ellison's past associations with anti-Semitism and his current voting anti-Israel voting record? Nor was it a smear to question Ellison's credibility when he said that he was not aware that Farrakhan was an anti-Semite, when Farrakhan himself was publicly boasting about his Jew hatred.