My bitter, gun-toting, church-going rival Tim Fernholz has an exceptional piece up today on the effect of the Obama campaign's flight from Muslim voters in an attempt to tamp down wrongheaded speculation that Obama himself is a Muslim:
But Powell's directness has been missing from the Obama campaign's response. His campaign has done an admirable job of standing up to guilt by association when it comes to its candidate but has been reluctant to engage in the same spirited rebuttal when Muslim American staffers, or issues, are in question. Attempts by the McCain campaign to associate Obama with terrorism by referencing his service alongside former '60s radical Bill Ayers on the board of a charitable foundation have been promptly fought by the campaign. But in several cases where Muslims working on the campaign have been challenged by the same standards, the Obama campaign hasn't stood up against the charges. Political calculation is one impetus -- it's much easier to write off a low-level staffer than to write off the candidate -- but a larger motivation is that being called a Muslim or an Arab bears a more pejorative association than have most other smears after September 11.
It's one thing to laud the bravery of Colin Powell in denouncing the Right's efforts to turn "Muslim" into a racial slur, but it's also worth acknowledging that the Obama campaign has spent less time fighting those efforts than it has trying to protect its candidate from them.
--A. Serwer
