By Daniel Levisohn

As everybody knows by now, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama yesterday morning on Meet the Press. My guess is that the endorsement won’t actually sway voters one way or another. Most people, I suspect, have already made up their minds. Those who haven’t probably won’t be convinced to vote for Obama by an endorsement, even one that comes from a well regarded statesman like Colin Powell.

Like a lot of folks out there, I was moved by Powell’s comments regarding a young Muslim-American soldier who died fighting in the U.S. I suggest everyone watch that part of the video (and check out this photo essay). But here’s the gist of it:

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's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-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 a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Amen. The fact that “Muslim” and “Arab” have been used rather openly as slurs for the entire election season I find disturbing, for exactly the reason that Powell spells out. Our Muslim and Arab co-nationals tend to be patriotic, successful and integrated. It’s one reason why Islamic radicalism hasn’t taken root here as it has in other parts of the world. As it turns out, America is pretty good at absorbing a huge number of diverse people into our civic culture. So, when Muslim-Americans get treated like foreigners or terrorists in our political discourse, it’s not only demeaning to them, it’s downright terrible for the country. It’s an insult to our greatest national virtue.

Elections get ugly. I get it. Politicians, political parties and partisans paint each other in the most negative terms possible. Fine. But at a certain point doesn’t all this us-vs-them talk get self-defeating? After this election, our representatives are going to have to govern. You can win elections with a bare majority of support, but you can’t govern successfully with it. When ordinary American aren’t hyperventilating over this election, we still work and play with our fellow countrymen and women; it’s destructive to our everyday relationships to argue that anyone who votes for Obama is a dupe or a terrorist-lover or that anyone who votes for McCain is stupid or a red-neck racist. So why do so many of us seem to play along? Is it just the emotions of the moment? Or are there issues in this election that are so big and important that Obama or McCain must be prevented from winning at all costs, and the opposing side really is just a bunch of know-nothings.