El-Sayed is no JFK no matter how much he tries to twist his memory

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, thinks he’s another John F.Kennedy — not in terms of charm or wit, but as a fellow victim of religious bigotry.When he ran for president in 1960, Jack Kennedy indeed encountered anti-Catholic prejudice, including the preposterous claim that he’d take orders as president from the Vatican.This was irrational conspiracy-theorizing — whereas the questions that El-Sayed is facing about his family’s ties to extremist groups are well-founded.It wasn’t a right-wing smear artist who first said that El-Sayed’s mother was with the Muslim Brotherhood, but his own half-sister.She tweeted in 2012, “Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect.”She suggested that other family members in Egypt were involved in the Muslim Brotherhood.His mom — just her luck — also worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the US government designated a supporter of terrorist groups.Now, El-Sayed could say that none of this has anything to do with him, since his biological mother didn’t raise him, and that his mother made a mistake in working for the Brotherhood.Or, he could produce evidence of the falsity of what his half-sister said — which, if it’s wrong, shouldn’t be difficult, given that both his mother and half-sister are around (his half-sister is a radically anti-Zionist  University of Chicago professor who is very excited about El-Sayed’s candidacy).Instead, he’s argued that questions about this constitute rank Islamophobia.He makes it sound as though the Muslim Brotherhood is a fraternal association, a Knights of Columbus for Muslims, such that any concerns about associations with it are inherently hateful.His reaction is a little like someone being asked about his family’s alleged KKK associations and responding, “How dare you question my white Protestant heritage.”In a viral exchange, a ques...