by: Jon Soltz

Mon Oct 20

In endorsing Barack Obama this weekend, Colin Powell brought up a photo of the tombstone of Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, being held by his grieving mother (posted below in an eloquent diary).  Powell brought it up to make the point that Muslim-Americans are as American as anyone else, and it is wrong that the Republican party allows the whisper campaign to continue, that Barack Obama is somehow a Muslim.

Indeed, while John McCain has corrected a woman who directly told him that Obama was "an Arab," the campaign has also given those who believe Obama is a "secret Muslim" a wink and a nod, by continually using phrases like "he doesn't see America like the rest of us," and tying him to "terrorists."  It is, incidentally, the same sentiment promoted by Benjamin Netanyahu in his campaign against Yitzhak Rabin, which Leah Rabin later blamed for her husband's assassination.