Colin Powell Endorses Obama

I was very pleased to see Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama, and was especially taken by these remarks about religion. No one else of his stature has yet given "the really right answer" to that question, so far as I know.

I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said: such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian, has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, "What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" The answer's "No, that's not America." Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Meanwhile, McCain's campaign makes robocalls, planting seeds of fear, falsehood, and innuendo. As Powell makes clear, that's not the direction we should be taking, "not the way we should be doing it in America."