Rep. Keith Ellison endorsed Anthony Weiner's potential New York City mayoral candidacy Thursday, saying the disgraced congressman deserved a "second chance."

Both Politico and the Huffington Post made the endorsement seem more ringing than it actually is. Ellison, the four-term Democrat from Minnesota's 5th District, said "Anthony is a good guy in my opinion. Now, he should've came clean once he got busted, you know, and I’m sorry he didn’t do that -- but he’s sorry he didn’t do that, and his wife's sorry he didn’t do that."

But on the actual endorsement, which he made on the ratings juggernaut that is Current TV's "Bill Press Show," Ellison seemed less than rah-rah, self-deprecatingly raising his arms and saying: "I would love to see Anthony Weiner be mayor of New York. I hereby endorse Anthony."

Click here for the clip.

In the New York Times Magazine, published Wednesday, Weiner says he’s considering a mayoral bid this year. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, resigned from Congress in 2011 following the fallout from a scandal in which he accidentally tweeted a lewd photograph of himself.

Perhaps on that note, Ellison called Weiner a "man of great passion" who "believes in what he's doing." The endorsement, he concluded, is "unsolicited."