Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed recently tried to shut down questions about his family’s documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and his own reluctance to draw clear lines on radical Islamist networks by invoking John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign. Kennedy faced suspicion that, as a Catholic, he might answer to the Vatican rather than the Constitution. El-Sayed’s comparison does not hold.
He is not being targeted simply for being Muslim. He is facing legitimate questions about national security, ideology, and fitness for the Senate that any candidate with this record would face. His refusal to answer them directly is the problem.
