This is a crap title for this posting but I am hoping you will overlook it. On Sunday, Colin Powell endorsed the candidacy of Barack Obama. In doing so he also condemned the divisive and disgusting rhetoric of the McCain/Palin ticket. One example he pointed to was the story of a 20 year old soldier named Kareem R. Khan who died in August of this year. Khan, from New Jersey, was 14 years old when the attacks of September 11 occurred. Every day since that tragedy and until he was old enough to enlist in the Army, Khan wanted to prove that not all Muslims were fanatics and many, like him, were willing to lay down their life for this country. In 2005, immediately after his graduation from high school, Khan enlisted. A year later he was sent to Iraq. Two years later, he was killed in an explosion resulting from clearing bombs in the Iraqi town of Baquoba. Khan was the recipient of a bronze star and a purple heart.

Powell told the story how he was moved by this recent photograph of Khan’s mother at his gravestone.

“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, Meet the Press, October 19, 2008.

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