John McCain vs. the people who fear Muslims

Does John McCain ever wonder what’s in the water in Minnesota?

The Arizona senator is denouncing Rep. Michele Bachmann’s suggestion that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the Obama administration.

McCain took to the Senate floor today to defend Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, named by Bachmann last month in calling for an investigation into whether the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the department.

McCain told the Senate today that the letter is “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman (See clip here).”

Here’s the full text of his speech.

Here’s the “money quote:”

“This is about who we are as a nation and who we still aspire to be. What makes America exceptional among the countries of the world is that we are bound together as citizens not by blood or class, not by sect or ethnicity, but by a set of enduring, universal and equal rights that are the foundation of our constitution, our laws, our citizenry, and our identity. When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”

If this sounds a bit familiar to you, you might be remembering an October 2008 McCain appearance in Lakeville.