What’s so bad about being Muslim?

Shadi Hamid, Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center & Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, tweeted earlier:

In an old post of mine from 2007, I asked ‘What’s so bad about being Muslim?’ some things, apparently, don’t change http://bit.ly/c2IjZy

Shadi in 2007 wrote under the title: “Smearing Obama“:

Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Obama has clarified that he is, in fact, Christian:

I just want to be very clear and this is obviously in no way an insult to the Muslim community who I respect deeply but I want people to know who I am. I am a Christian. I am a member of Trinity United Church of Christ. I have been for 15 years. I have never practiced Islam and I think it’s important for people not to buy into these sort of fear tactics that people also often use during political games. People need to know the facts. These are the facts as I presented them and I hope that that at least does not become a reason for people not to want to vote for me.”

I understand that Obama wants to set the record straight. He needs to do that. But I have a question. What’s so bad about being Muslim? Why does calling someone a Muslim constitute a smear? It says a lot about conservatives that many of them wouldn’t be willing to entertain the idea of a Muslim president. Because we’re a fifth column, apparently, and we hate America, and all that. Well, to say that you’re opposed to the idea of a Muslim president is plain-out racism, and we shouldn’t indulge these attitudes or pretend they’re legitimate positions to take. Anyway, that’s a different issue. In any case, it apparently hasn’t occurred to them that someone who has connections to the Muslim world (or whose father was Muslim, god forbid!) might actually do a better job of convincing the world 1.5 billion Muslims – and demonstrating through less antagonistic policies – that America is not diametrically opposed to Islam. But if we won the Uppercase War on Terror – also known as World War IV or, more recently, Cold War II – we’d have nothing left to fight for (or fight against), so never mind.

Ikhwanophobia wants to re-ask the question, What’s bad about being Muslim?