Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota stood by his man – President Bush – as the keynote speaker at the Orthodox Union’s annual dinner in New York last night.

Having warmed up the crowd with the story of how he grew up in a “liberal Jewish Democratic family from Brooklyn and wound up as a Republican Senator from Minnesota,” Coleman went on to defend the President’s “steadfastness.”

“I understand that the President’s approval ratings are very low,” Coleman told an audience of 700 in a ballroom at the Hilton New York. “I believe the President’s steadfastness in the war against Islamic extremism must be applauded.” (The line did indeed draw hearty applause, according to the O.U.’s spokesman, Steve Steiner.)

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Coleman also spoke out against Iran, which he said “must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon” and must be stopped from exporting “its extremist Islamic vision” as to Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups.

FYI for your calendar, Coleman generally speaks at the O.U.’s annual Israel Mission in Washington, D.C., which this year will be held June 12-13.

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