COLIN POWELL: And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign.  But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist.  Well, then, why do we keep talking about him?  And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted.  What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings.  And I think that’s inappropriate.

Now, I understand what politics is all about.  I know how you can go after one another, and that’s good.  But I think this goes too far.  And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow.  It’s not what the American people are looking for.  And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me.  And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift.  I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration.  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.  He’s 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 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.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn’t have a Christian cross. It didn’t have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.”

I have to say, Powell did a fine job expressing himself.  The inevitable cries of “Only Because He’s Black” came from the rushists of the world on que.   People making that accusation missed the part of the story where Powell gave money to McCain back in his pre-racist, rational days on late 2007, when he was an American hero.  Now he’s just another racist shill, according the right wing media elite.  

And McCain’s Response….”I don’t care about Ayers, let’s talk about Ayers!”, “The attacks on me in 2000 by the same people I hired in 2008 are totally different that what I defend now.”  “I’m a victim of racism.”

I think the most hypocritical statement of McCain’s (of many) is how personally insulted he is being associated with people that would bomb innocent people.  He’s probably worried since racists bombed and killed an infinite number more people in the incident mentioned [4] than the Weather Underground ever did in their reign of terror [0].

Many people, McCain/Palin foremost amoung them, seem to forget that the Weather Underground was a bunch of pansy liberals who warned people before they blew stuff up and schemed endlessly to avoid civilian casualties.    Actually, considering how “effective” McCain’s terrorist attacks have been on Obama, my guess is that most people realize this (or how long ago it was and how remote the “connection” is), and consider it a non-issue.

Like Powell did.