Constance L. Rice in the LA Times follows Campbell Brown's lead:

Excuse me, but when did the words "Muslim" and "Arab" become acceptable epithets? I'm not a Muslim, and perhaps I was slow to see this coming ... Apparently, I was wrong. The undertones have become screaming overtones. And it is past time to object.

If it wasn't clear before, it became crystal clear last week in the aftermath of Republican rallies. Fomenting fear to shore up drooping support, Republicans sadly used heated demagoguery about "palling around with terrorists," about "Barack Hussein Obama" and about how Obama doesn't "see America like you and I," words that mixed subliminally to conflate "terror" with "Muslim" and to whip crowds into xenophobic anger. After his enraged supporters were recorded uttering death threats and racial slurs, McCain was forced on several occasions to try to tamp down the anger in the audience and to defend his opponent.

That was a good step one -- until McCain blew it. A woman stood up in the audience and said that she just couldn't trust Obama because, as she put it, "he's an Arab." McCain shook his head, took the microphone and said: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

So, what is he saying? Arabs aren't decent family men? They can't be citizens?

She calls McCain out for not repudiating his own supporters who are behind these slurs, but she also chastises Obama for not saying, ""For the hundredth time, I am a Christian, and if you are suggesting that there is something wrong with Islam or being a Muslim, you are wrong"?

I can understand his political hesitancy for not doing that right now, considering how any statement he makes will be distorted and used against him. But he ought to take a bolder stance after the election.