The “Muslim issue” continues to be raised regarding Democratic Senator Barack Obama and it’s coming from (could you guess?) a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton.

(See Shaun Mullen’s post and my post for background on what has happened with the Clinton campaign.)

And, now, it seemingly continues.

Today, Obama is still being linked to Muslims in the media..and it’s coming from the same camp that earlier had a supporter attempt to raise Obama’s youthful drug use. The camp of a candidate who has admirably denounced the “politics of personal destruction” over the years.

The latest comes from former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Hillary Clinton supporter:

Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president Sunday but stirred a continuing controversy by noting her chief rival’s name is “Barack Hussein Obama” and that Obama had Muslim ancestors.

“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim,” Kerrey, who made a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination won by Bill Clinton in 1992, told The Washington Post.

Benefit of the doubt: he really likes Obama and is happy a Muslim is running. Less charitable: he is raising the issue in a way that he has “plausible deniability” and can say why he likes the fact that he’s Muslim.

“There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal,” Kerrey said after the kickoff of a five-day tour of Iowa by Clinton. “He’s got a whale of a lot more intellectual talent than I’ve got as well.”

Kerrey had pondered a potential Obama endorsement before deciding on the New York Democrat. And while Kerrey’s comments were ostensibly made as a compliment to Obama, they resurrected a troublesome issue for the first-term junior senator from Illinois.

But not everyone is accepting that this was just an innocent slip of the tongue…because of of a follow-up comment Kerrey said. Matthew Yglesias writes:

[Kerrey is] now following up on his “Barack Hussein Obama” remarks by alleging that Obama attended a “secular madrassa” whatever that’s supposed to mean. The Obama campaign’s been pretty successful at painting Team Hillary as unduly nasty and, frankly, the stuff they were dishing out previously was child’s play compared to this BS.

And, indeed, the fact that this is being raised — even with a smile and proclamations of admiration — by a supporter of Ms. Clinton, coming on the heels of the attempt to get the drug allegation sleaze into the media news cycle (in the end it was successful) does suggest there is a concerted attempt to raise Obama’s negatives.

In several emails, readers have asked me to bluntly state how I feel about this issue since I am a quintessential independent voter who has been all over the place (perhaps more a typical California independent voter). So here it is:

I start out each campaign reading and watching the candidates. I do each post separately — NOT trying to do a post to help or hurt a candidate. I have said many favorable things about Ms. Clinton. (Her campaign even once ran ads on this site.) But this seeming attempt to link Obama with Muslims has one clear goal: to peel voters away from Obama and free them up for Ms. Clinton to harvest by appealing to anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States that lumps in all Muslims with the reprehensible 911 attackers.

Any candidate whose camp appeals to bigotry for votes whether directly or indirectly won’t get my vote in an election. Any candidate who runs such a poor campaign that they can’t get the word out that raising the Muslim issue is done, finished, not the kind of politics we want in a country where there are SERIOUS ISSUES to be discussed does not deserve the keys to the Oval Office because he or she will have shown to be lousy administrators.

If they can’t coordinate a basic instruction to stick to issues and not do anything that could be construed to be a personal attack, how can they be trusted to run a federal administration?

The other unmentionable issue is this: doesn’t raising the Muslim issue coming on the heels of raising the drug issue suggest that, if some of these folks thought they could get away with it, they would raise the race issue, too?

What’s unfolding in this episode is smelly Karl Rove-style politics — even if in a way that seems or is unintentional. It’s the kind of politics many of us independent voters do not want to see dominating the White House and many independent voters will likely reject it at the ballot box actively or by staying home if we don’t like the tactics of one candidate and the policies of the other.

Is this all a mistake? Just innocently raising the issue? Didn’t he say nice things said about Obama, too?

Yes, he did say some nice things.

But he has raised the Muslim issue in several ways now. And we wrote about the drug issue being raised just a few days ago.

From what my parents told me, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck….

And neither did many other independent voters, who are watching this seeming attempt to raise negative personal issues about Obama that an honorable opposing campaign that truly didn’t endorse the politics of personal destruction would not raise.

FOR A CROSS-SECTION OF VIEWS ON THESE CONTROVERSIES CHECK OUT THESE POSTS:

–Taylor Marsh
–Newsbusters
–USS Neverdock
–Real Clear Politics
–Ari Melber at the Huffington Post