Keith, T-Jeff, and the Quran

I didn't know until just now that good old Keith Ellison today used his oath of office ceremony to perform some sweet political jujitsu:

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

That man is going far.

(Via Minnesota Monitor; a Northfield blog also finds the inevitable Minnesota link: this neat trick was facilitated by a rare-books curator at the Library of Congress who is a native Minnesotan [and a St. Olaf alum].)