@newsblogtv: BREAKING: “IT'S RACIST AS HELL!” Political commentator Charles M. Blow blasts the double standard he says Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed faces as a Muslim running for office – and demands to know why Republican senators aren't held to the same standard when Donald Trump engages in hateful rhetoric! Blow erupted during an MS NOW hit on the Assignment with Antonia Hylton about the pressure on El-Sayed to condemn an advertisement from an outside political group that he neither created nor authorized. El-Sayed had already said he wasn't associated with the ad and didn't agree with it. But critics continued demanding a stronger denunciation. Blow argued that the demands revealed a glaring double standard. “They're asking the Muslim man running for the Senate to disavow this, disavow that, disavow that,” he said. “None of them disavow Donald Trump when he engages in hatred.” He pointed out that Republican senators aren't routinely threatened with losing political support unless they condemn every offensive remark Trump makes. He then described the suspicion he believes lies behind those demands: “You have to prove you’re not some scary Muslim terrorist, and we don't believe it until you have done everything that we say you must do.” And then came his furious verdict. “It's racist, it's racist as hell.” Blow acknowledged that people can disagree with El-Sayed's criticism of Israel's conduct in Gaza. But he rejected treating those disagreements as evidence that the candidate has something fundamentally suspect about him. The exchange raises an uncomfortable question about political accountability: When does asking a candidate to explain his position become a demand that he repeatedly prove his loyalty? Blow's answer was unmistakable. He believes El-Sayed is being subjected to a test that other politicians aren't expected to pass – and he wants that double standard confronted. El-Sayed for Senate in Michigan. Vote Blue.
