With the presidential campaign season quickly descending upon America and politicians declaring their candidacy, the nation’s airwaves and newspapers are already becoming littered with the personal attacks, insults and threats that politicians and the media fling around in attempts to discredit candidates.

For voters who are eager to start staking out who they want to rally behind, this is at the very least disheartening, and perhaps even embarrassing. These are people who Americans are hoping will be the revived and fresh face of America, and yet too often, they are busy either playing or warding off a political game of “top that insult.”

Luckily, American politicians and the media have largely adhered to the “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” dogma and avoided the occasional fist fights that politicians across the globe have engaged in as far as Taiwan and the Czech Republic. As entertaining as it might be to watch Hillary and Barack or Bill O’Reilly and John Stewart duke it out in a ring, we’ll have to settle for verbal punches.

But oh how low those punches have been, and we’re not even halfway through 2007. A couple of weeks ago in an example of flamboyant media extravagance and self-righteousness, Fox News falsely reported that democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was educated at a radical Islamic school in Indonesia during his childhood. Smearing two campaigns with one stone, Fox News told its viewers that associates of Hillary Clinton had discovered this information. Clinton’s camp denied the allegation that they provided this information, and CNN sent a correspondent to the actual school to investigate the claims.

It turned out that the school was anything but radical. The headmaster of the school told CNN correspondent John Vause, “It’s not (an) Islamic school. It’s general. There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian … so that’s a mixed school.” And if anyone had any problems with this, Obama had already noted in his books that he had spent some years at a posh Muslim-affiliated school.

Fox never apologized for this falsification, and in fact kept repeating some claims that were untrue even after they were aware of their inaccuracy. Obama, meanwhile, did some damage control, has continued his campaign and recently said that he believes voters do not judge people on their religion. He went on to say, “I think the majority of voters know that I’m a member of the United Church of Christ, and that I take my faith seriously”. If anyone had doubts, the Obama campaign further reasserted that he “has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.”

If Americans haven’t had it drilled into their heads enough quite yet, here it is one more time: Fear not, America. Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He has proudly proclaimed his dedication to the Christian faith, so be at ease.

But what if he was a Muslim? What if he did happen to attend a Muslim school? Are Americans aware of just how huge a spectrum of Islamic schools exists across world, and that in fact they most certainly go to school, work and socialize with Muslims without even being aware of the fact? Would it matter to them? Obama himself said that he doesn’t believe American voters have a religion litmus test for candidates, yet he found it necessary to quickly emphasize his own dedication to the Christian faith.

For the media to cast Obama as a pariah for having an innocuous connection to Islam is shameful. For the American public to believe that a connection to Islam is an inherently dangerous and terrible thing is xenophobic and frustrating, especially since American foreign policy in the Middle East, which is home to millions of Muslims, is on extremely shaky ground. And for fresh-faced, beacon-of-light-for-America Obama to have to defend himself against this and further distance himself away from it should prompt some serious discussion of the subject.

If Obama’s miniscule connection to the Islamic world can send the media and Americans into a panic, then we’ve got a lot bigger problems to deal with than just an entertaining presidential race.

Reach columnist Hanady Kader at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.