February 11, 2008

  • Stories like this make me sad. It's discouraging to realize how bigoted people can be, without even realizing it.

    Here's an excerpt:

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    After a few months on the trail, I'm
    starting
    to worry that there are national-security swing voters out there who
    will be suspicious of someone who has ANY links to the Muslim world--as
    irrelevant as those links may be. I wish it wasn't true, but over the
    past two months, I've had at
    least a dozen people respond to my rote question--What do you think of Barack Obama?--by
    worrying aloud about his "Muslim background." I'm always quick to tell
    them that he's not a Muslim, but it rarely makes a difference. Take
    Vicki Hercsky, 47, a teacher from Boca Raton, Florida. "Obama, I don't
    even know how he got where he is," she told me after a Rudy Giuliani
    event late last month. "Why do you say that?" I asked. "He's
    Muslim," she replied, matter-of-factly. I stammered. "Well, um, his
    father was raised Muslim but was an agnostic by the time Barack was
    born," I said. "Obama is a Christian." Hercsky wasn't swayed. "Yeah,
    but he has it
    in his blood," she said. "You can't take
    away what's given to you. It's given to you for a reason, and that's
    who you are. That's who he is." I'm not sure what she meant by "it," or
    "who he is"--and I'm not sure I want to know.
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