Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

C-Ville Weekly is the talk of every politico in the nation, thanks to their article about Rep. Virgil Goode. Earlysville resident John Cruickshank received a letter from Goode in which Goode spoke plainly about newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison, who happens to be Muslim. Cruickshank passed that letter onto C-Ville, who published it in this week’s issue. In the letter, Goode complains that “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran,” and that he “fear[s] that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States,” which is his roundabout way of saying that Rep. Ellison is unfit to hold office and contributing to the end of society as we know it by being sworn into office with his hand on the Quran.

The story ricocheted around political blogs on Tuesday and Wednesday. The AP picked up the story mid-afternoon on Wednesday. NPR’s All Things Considered covered it that night. By yesterday variations of the story had been published in hundreds of newspapers across the nation, NBC’s Nightly News covered it, and Goode’s refusal to apologize or backtrack had earned him the ire of organizations like The Anti-Defamation League. Many of these stories have traced back the origins of this letter, naming C-Ville as the source.

Rep. Ellison has proved the gentlemen in the whole affair, merely pointing out that what Goode doesn’t know about Islam is a lot. Goode, on the other hand, has reacted angrily, unwilling or unable to accept that he has constituents that believe that somebody’s religion has nothing to do with their ability to serve. If Goode represents Christians in this dispute, and Ellison Muslims, looks like it’s Muhammad 1, Christ 0.