The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama that he was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but just another uppity Negro.

If the hate-mongering of these people was not so destructive, the knots into which they tie themselves would be amusing.

They slavishly support an immoral war fostered by Bush and Cheney (and yes, Powell, as well) and for no reason more than their view that it is a well-justified payback against godless Muslims. An American jihad, if you will.

But what happens when one of those godless Muslim turns out to be an American who made the ultimate sacrifice?

Powell got it just right in his Obama endorsement speech when he declared:

“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.”

Would a Limbaugh or an Ann Coulter lay flowers at the grave of Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan? Of course they wouldn’t. Because for them, unbridled hate even trumps their supposed love of country.