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Ellison sheds the light of day on Wellstone crash

Posted at 12:52 PM on October 25, 2007 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)

I've tried a number of times to figure out what Keith Ellison is talking about in his remarks yesterday honoring Sen. Paul Wellstone.

From the transcript, and looking at the video, it looked like he was winging it.

How else, then, to explain this?

It was a long night, Mr. Speaker, when we heard back the reports as the news reports said that a plane has gone down in Ely, Minnesota, and it was thought to be containing Paul Wellstone and his partner, Sheila Wellstone, and their daughter and several other campaigners. We hoped all night that what we thought might have happened didn't happen, but at the end of the evening, we learned that that tragedy, in fact, did occur. Our worst fears were confirmed when we learned that we lost him, but it was a long several hours before we realized that that tragedy had actually occurred, and we had hoped against hope. I will never forget that night.

Huh?

Were the House members looking at each other when he made this speech? Or was it one of those times where the chamber is empty and legislators take to the floor -- and C-Span -- to make it look like a big speech with people hanging on every word? Didn't anybody notice this his recollection of events are pretty far off?

Wellstone's plane took off at around 8 in the morning, it crashed about an hour later, and Jeff Blodgett announced his death a few hours after that. Here's a link to the page I put together at the time, which includes audio from dozens of politicians on the same day.... when -- I must point out -- the sun was up.

Here's the video of Ellison's comments on the floor of the House.

Night? A long night?

And the plane went down in Ely, Minnesota, which will come as a big surprise to the folks in Eveleth-Virginia.

I figure maybe he was in Australia at the time, but he says in the speech he was to visit Wellstone in the office the same day, so he must've been in the same time zone.

If you're going to make a heartfelt tribute, you've got to get the basic facts right.

(and speaking of which, in original "editions" of this post, I figured the problem was that some speechwriter wrote the thing and, comparing it to Radar and Col. Potter, it was no, shall we say vetted. However, at the time, I thought it was a press release statement and not a floor speech and, well, that wouldn't really make any sense, would it? I mean, the guy could stop in the middle of speaking if it were written by someone else, right? For example, i could stop and say, 'wait, it wasn't Col. Potter, it was Henry Blake." Armed with this knowledge, I am further at a loss to explain the whole 'long night' thing.)

Comments (12)

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. That's pretty pathetic. As a longtime fan of Wellstone's (but not of Ellison) I'm not terribly surprised.

Posted by John | October 25, 2007 3:33 PM

He may simply remember such a depressing day in his life as having been dark and grim. Life's light, embodied for him in Wellstone, may have dimmed and failed on that day. He may be using a literary device whose name I never really knew but which would be impressive were I able to use it here, but you get my point that he's not speaking literally of night as, like, the non-day part of the day but as the time of blindness and fear and owls (I hate owls like some people hate clowns) and . . .

Or, as he sometimes does when he knows not the answer but can't admit it, like when my dad used to sing M-I-C, K-E-Y (Y? Because we love you!) M-O-U-S-E in church when he couldn't remember the verse we were on, Ellison's making it up as he goes along knowing that usually, no one notices, and when they do, NO ONE ever calls him on it.

Posted by bobby-b-b | October 25, 2007 8:09 PM

maybe Keith knows something we don't.......

Posted by Johnny | October 25, 2007 10:36 PM

i like ellison, but he blew it this time.........

Posted by daveZ | October 26, 2007 12:08 PM

This type of statement is quintessential Ellison. He is a big fake, but I agree with bobby, no one will call him out on it because the extreme lefties will claim some superfluous falsehood on the person who called Ellison out. Bunch of hypocrits.

Posted by Kevin | October 26, 2007 3:23 PM

Bob, thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in Ellison's story. Testing the veracity of what our politicians say is an important function of the media in a democratic republic like ours. Unfortunately the Star Tribune and other Minnesota media organs continually fail in their responsibility in doing this when it comes to DFL figures. Thanks for being one of the last honest journalists in the state.

ACers99

Posted by ACers99 | October 27, 2007 9:48 AM

"If you're going to make a heartfelt tribute, you've got to get the basic facts right."

I suppose a corollary is "If you're going to publish a snarky commentary on rhetorical innaccuracy, it would be best to assure that your own facts are right.

And the plane went down in Ely, Minnesota, which will come as a big surprise to the folks in Eveleth-Virginia.

Um...that's Eveleth-Minnesota.

Posted by Bingo | October 27, 2007 10:30 AM

He will get a pass due to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Posted by thatsok | October 27, 2007 11:08 AM

Bingo, the airplane went down on approach to the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport.

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KEVM

Virginia refers to the city that's next to Eveleth (Virginia is home of Tom Rukavina. His dad's funeral is where the Wellstones were heading)

Your corollary, though, is a good one, and thanks for sharing it.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 27, 2007 10:14 PM

Bingo - so you might have thought since there was a ‘-‘ and not a ‘,’ would have been the first clue that it was one name and not two.

Although I would have given you the benefit of the doubt had you not used the word corollary - a proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof - which I had to look up to find out what it meant.

Posted by nasty gossip | October 29, 2007 9:20 AM

Good thing that area (Ely or Eveleth) is not in his constituency.

It would be the equivalent of saying something happened in St Cloud MN but saying it happened in his constituency (the fifth CD). That is to say distance between Ely and Eveleth are about the same distance from each other as the 5th CD is to St Cloud.

Posted by Brian Hanf | October 30, 2007 2:57 PM

Not exactly sure what you're saying here. I think what this is is a guy throwing out a bunch of factoids to show that the incident -- itself -- had such a profound affect on him, and then getting most of the factoids wrong.

Does that mean it didn't have a profound effect on him?

I don't think so. But it doesn't mean that it did either.

Let's just say I remember exactly where I was when JFK was killed. I remember exactly where I was when Wellstone's plane crash, when John Lennon was shot, when two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

I can't, for the life of me, imagine getting the "where I was" aspect of any of those things wrong.

I don't remember where I was, however, when, for example, Jim Croce was killed. I'm pretty sure that's because while I found it interesting, it didn't really affect me THAT much. Suffice it to say, I won't be making any public speeches about Jim Croce.

Possibly, that's just me. I hear everyone's different.

I'm in San Francisco so I don't know if these gaffes have made any ripples. If Michele Bachmann had made this speech, my guess is folks would be all over it.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 30, 2007 7:01 PM

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