“Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America,” – Colin Powell, standing up to the disgusting rhetoric and tactics of the McCain-Palin campaign.
** Over the past decade, no public official has disappointed me more than Colin Powell. He’s a wise man who followed the lead of idiots, supporting a war that too many people knew was crooked. But, to some degree, he made up for that this morning on Meet The Press. Not in his endorsement of Barack Obama (which, of course, I loved), but with the above statement. It’s an incredibly important point that had yet to be made by a public figure: The question shouldn’t be whether Obama is Muslim or not … but why the fuck does it matter? This is America. We’re not a mono-belief nation, but one where church and state must stay divided. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Athiest, Agnostic, Dogistic—all should be completely irrelevant when it comes to who leads this country.
Right on.
