A brilliant piece of reportage. Thanks for the wonderful picture!

You DO realize you hit the front page of DailyKos!

Gird your servers!

Perfect....he deserves every bit of that sign. To think we still have such bigoted ignorance in 2007....And the fact it took so long to notice just shows the blinders he wears

Over here in the UK, we've also got such prejudiced tossers, and I'm pleased to see such a virulent reaction to his bigotry and xenophobia. In the UK, he'd be a member of the BNP in all likelihood

Amazing, so it is okay to call someone names? I do not agree with the guy's tirade, but the best thing is to correct him. So the people who pasted BIGOT on his window are no better than GOODE for bitching about Ellison using the Koran.

And so the circle is complete again.

Mike you are wrong. Nobody called him a name. He clearly is a person who wants to promote ignorance and descrimination. He earned the title on his own. It is no worse than if someone called Donald Trump rich.

The article is wrong in stating that: "...freshman Minnesota congressman-elect Keith Ellison's plan to be sworn into office using the Muslim holy book, the Koran." Congressmen (women) are NOT sworn-in using ANY book. They mearly raise their right hand. After the swearing in, they may choose whatever book they desire for photo-ops.

In fact, the Koran that Ellison plans to use had previously been the property of Thomas Jefferson. Yes, the third President of the United States.

I do expect more accuracy in reporting by the media.

Well, that solves that! Simply by calling someone names all the questions people have about allowing immigration by, say, devout Muslims from Saudi Arabia has disappeared. It's also a good thing they didn't break any shop windows while doing the stencil.

Virgil Goode is my name and y’all know I’m a Dixiecrat

'til some Muslim came and tore me up, just like that

In the winter of two thousand and six;

said some things to please the hicks

I took my stain to Richmond, Oh, Hell

It was a time I remember, oh, so well

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringin'

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singin'

They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na, .... "

Back with Wade in Martinsville

And one day he said to me,

"Virgil, Quick! What fun!

There goes Keith Ellison."

Now I don't mind, the Democrats won

And I don't care Gorge Allen is done

Just take D.C and chant “right on!”

But he should never have pledged on the Koran!

The night they drove this old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringin'

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singin'

They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na, ..... "

Like my father before me, I'm in the Ku Klux Klan

And like my brother before me, I support the white man

Oh, he was just a theif, my Mitchell Wade

But a yankee judge cut off my “aid”

I swear by the blood stains on my hands

You can't raise a vain Goode up when he's been banned

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringin'

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singin'

They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na, ..... "

It's amazing the Republicans are all up in arms about someone holding a Koran, but when the Bush Administration hurried the Bin Laden family out of the United States -- when all commercial jets were grounded -- you didn't hear a peep of protest and you still haven't.

I wonder what the repub bigots will say when a Muslim neo-con is sworn in as the replacement for Bolton over at the UN.

Yes word is that Zalmay Khalilzad who is currently US ambassador/viceroy to Iraq will be nominated by Bush to be US amb. at the UN.

Will Khalilzad be sworn in with a Koran? I doubt it, but i wonder what the fascists in the repub party will say about this.

Rep. Ellison is not an immigrant. Newsflash: Not all native born Americans are white christians.

If we don't stop the immigration problems, we are gonna have a lot more muslims taking office.... ....so when do we build the wall around Detroit? That is where the scary dark-skinned muslim (Ellison) is from, right?

Good pastiche, Lee!

I offer my own:

Way down in Franklin County, north of Martinsville,

Where every hill and holler hides a whiskey still,

Where furriners and Yankees better not intrude,

There lived a country boy named Virgil H. Goode.

He was in Phi Beta Kappa, he was in ODK,

But he talked just like a farmhand in a field of hay.

Go go

Go Virgil go

Go

Go Virgil go

Go

Go Virgil go

Go

Go Virgil go

Go

Virgil H. Goode

He served in the State Senate from an early age

But he soon began to hanker for a bigger stage.

Then he first went up to Congress as a Democrat,

Though he hung around with Jerry and was friends with Pat.

He tried it as an indie for a little while,

But then he went Republican and crossed the aisle.

Go…etc.

He got some campaign bucks from folks at MZM

But he passed the money on, it didn’t stick to him.

He wants to keep the immigrants out of our land.

He doesn’t think that Ellison should swear on the Koran.

On the blogs and in the news, he’s everywhere in sight,

They’re sayin’, “Virgil H. Goode, get screwed tonight.”

Go…etc.

In this case, justice was served well. The neo-cons have enjoyed power for so long, they think that they are entitled to absolute power over the civil rights of anyone else. In thier book the end does justify the means, other people's backs are meant for climbing and stabbing, and young impressionable minds are for thier pleasure of cannabalism. In a free society, these fundamental conservatives are the very terrorists that they warm us about.

Wow. This is great work. Nice report, and the picture is perfect. You see, I am actually from Virginia, and between this laughingstock of a Congressman, and that other racist, George Allen, 2006 was the year that people in Virginia government took us two steps back as a state. Thanks guys, for making the two top news stories this year involving Virginia, representing us as ignorant racists.

To the people that said 'name calling doesn't solve anything, blah blah...' Who said that all that person or group did was one 'name calling?' Possibly they have done many other actual campaigns, but the fact remains that instead of a brick, or a crappy spray-painting over the name, they nearly matched the color and composition of the original sign, which makes it hilarious. It's near perfect in execution. Kudos, guys.

Someone please explain to me why the American people would allow someone in office that would take an oath by placing their hand on a book that states the following, and I quote from a Qur'an that was given to me from a local Mosque and that I read twice just to make sure this is what it said:

Surah 5:51

O you who believe! Take not the Jews or Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors of themselves.

Surah 9:5

But when the forbidden months have past, then fight and slay the Pagans (Jews and Christians) wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every strategem (of war)!

Surah 9:29

Fight those who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and his messager, nor knowledge the Religion of Truth, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued --

Does Keith Ellison believe what is in this book?

As for Thomas Jefferson owning a copy of the Qur'an, it's always smart to know you're opposition - Thomas Jefferson was very much a Christian and I quote just one of many many statements made by him:

"The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making law ...an oligarchy ...the rule of few over many.

People, you better wake up, America is factually based and founded on Christian beliefs and the gospel of Jesus Christ ---

The Qur'an is in total contradiction to the Holy Bible, no similarities at all --

Think again, James.

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Jefferson

It's probably going to be a few hundred more years before that day comes to most of Virginny.

James asks, "Someone please explain to me why the American people would allow someone in office that would take an oath by placing their hand on a book that states the following" and then quotes from to Quran.

OK!

The Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment I:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

THAT's why the American people would allow someone to swear an oath on any holy text the swearer cares to. Because it would be UNAMERICAN to pass a law otherwise. This I know, because the Constitution tells me so.

To the extent that the founding fathers were Christians, James, they were better Christians than you: it was they who decided, after all, that this is a country where ALL faiths are welcome, and even people of NO faiths. This, James, is what makes America GREAT, and an example to all nations on earth.

Your petty sectarianism is UNAMERICAN and TREASONOUS and makes you a lousy Christian who really needs to go read book Luke 10 again (presuming you even read it a first time).

You are entitled to your belief that the Koran is in, as you put it, "total contradiction to the Holy Bible" -- thought others surely disagree -- and I will simply point out that, here, in the great country of America, it's GLADLY WELCOMED for other holy texts, yes, even ones which COMPLETELY CONTRADICT the Bible, to be used for the swearing of solemn oaths. That's because THIS IS AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE, where our sons and daughters have watered the tree of LIBERTY -- the LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE -- with their own blood!

Gee, James- It looks as though Virgil Goode isn't the only bigot in Virginia. There's Allen, and there's... you.

I am disgusted, but not terribly surprised, at the intollerance and hatefullness that seems to be so prevalent in this young country of ours.

I am hopeful that goodness, compassion and intelligence will prevail over old-fashioned and out-dated hate, greed and stupidity.

I'd have to agree with NM there.....

what an idiot. America based on christian values huh??

like when we bought err...conned the native americans out of Long Island for a box of trinkets, or generously gave smallpox infested blankets to other tribes??? Yeah. Founded on Christian beliefs. Okay. Sure. You're a cool smart guy, James.

Mr. Goode.....you earned that label. Hopefully they etched it in the glass instead of painted it. What an a$$HOLE.

There are some very valid issues regarding the subject of "illegal immigration." It is both a labor/worker's rights issue and a security issue. For those who've had their identities stolen and used by illegal immigrants- it is also a personal financial and credit issue.

Virgil Goode does a disservice to the subject of "illegal immigration" by interjecting religion where it does not belong. It is something the Republicans and their base so frequently and fervently attempt with many issues in government.

Additionally, the vandal is no better than the misguided Representative Goode.

Clearly, something is very wrong with our educational system when people do not understand that our system is based on the constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, rather than the sacred texts of any religion.

Somehow, people have the idea that one must be white and Christian to be a "real" American or Virginian. The reality is that people of African and Asian and European descent have all labored to create the country we all share.

James:

"Someone please explain to me why the American people would allow someone in office that would take an oath by placing their hand on a book that states the following"

Yeah, because the Bible doesn't have any passages in it relating to things that we don't agree with. Exodus says that it's okay to sell women into slavery; that it's required to put somebody to death because they work on the Sabbath, or for wearing garments of differing threads, or for planting different crops next to each other.

Let's remember, those of you who would consider yourself Christians (as I do): we would do better to be ACCEPTING of others, rather than rejecting them. It would better emulate the teachings of Christ to do so, and isn't that the whole point of being a Christian?

I fail to see the humor in the committing of a federal crime. The Hook should condemn this type of behavior.

How is vandalism a federal crime?

vandalization?

Where's your copy editor??

The "vandal" should have matched the typeface used on the original sign. If he/she had, it probably would have been a couple of years before anyone noticed.

Subject: Jefferson and his Quran

This is a meaningful insight!

What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad

By Ted Sampley

U.S. Veteran Dispatch

January 2007

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.

The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.

Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.

There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.

Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states. Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.

The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.

Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.

Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.

Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.

In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain. The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease. During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.

Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast. The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.

In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves. During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."

It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates. Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.