Ellison gets year-end cheers and jeers

Rep. Keith Ellison got some cheers and some jeers in editorial pages this week, as pundits put their spin on politics at the end of the year. The Nation called him the “most valuable representative,” while the Star Tribune’s Jon Tevlin told him to pack his bags and move to New York. Tevlin gave Reps. Michele Bachmann and James Oberstar their marching orders as well.

In the Nation’s Progressive Honor Role, Ellison scored big points for his work on peace issues:

Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, a former civil rights lawyer and state legislator, is still identified as “the first Muslim elected to Congress.” But the Congressman is making a name for himself as a progressive leader with global reach. Frequently called into action by the State Department (not just by Hillary Clinton but also by Condoleezza Rice), Ellison has a higher international profile than all but a few House members; he uses it to remind the global community—and Americans—that “religious tolerance has a much longer pedigree in America than some of the intolerance we’ve seen lately.” His unprecedented visit to Gaza was followed this year by a call on President Obama to do more to ease the blockade of the Palestinian territory. Evenhanded and diplomatic in his approach, Ellison argued that “fulfilling the needs of civilians in Israel and Gaza are mutually reinforcing goals.”

But he drew jeers from the Star Tribune’s Tevlin for not voting to censure Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York. Tevlin’s column offered “free metaphorical bus tickets out of Minnesota to people I found objectionable, immoral or just plain un-Minnesotan in 2010″:

Rep. Keith Ellison. He didn’t vote to censure Rep. Charlie Rangel, found guilty of 11 counts of unethical behavior. Representative, what don’t you understand about tax trouble? Oh, right, there’s that. Despite knowing about Rangel’s problems, the good people of New York voted him back in a landslide. Hop on the bus to the Big Apple, Ellison, where you will no doubt thrive.

Tevlin also dinged Bachmann: “You have to give the Republicans credit for their sense of humor in naming her to the Intelligence Committee” and Oberstar: “It is only fitting that a transportation czar get a ticket on Greyhound, which started in his district.”