John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States, visited Oakland University outside Detroit yesterday. He held a “town hall” meeting in a room filled mostly with Republicans. His prepared remarks were about “human dignity,” by which he apparently meant religious freedom, an end to human trafficking, and cracking down on child pornography. While in Detroit, home to more Arab Americans than any other metropolitan area, McCain didn’t mention the fact that he has no problem discriminating against Arab Americans.

Just a few days ago, a right-wing extremist website claimed (with no evidence) that Ali Jawad, one of McCain’s Detroit-area supporters, “has ties” to Hezbollah. Immediately, McCain kicked Jawad, a Lebanese American, off of his campaign. Jawad says that he has no connection to Hezbollah, the Middle Eastern militant group, and Arab American leaders have demanded an apology from McCain.

Rather than take the opportunity while in Michigan to publicly apologize to the Arab American community, McCain instead talked about his plan to oppose “the enemies of human dignity in our own society and in all the dark corners of the world.” Yes. Apparently, McCain managed to say that with a straight face. Then, right after his “town hall,” McCain drove to the million-dollar fundraiser that Jawad helped to organize. Jawad was un-invited.

Ali Jawad is no saint, and I’m not going to defend him here (he is a top Republican fundraiser, after all). But over and over again for decades, Americans of Arab descent have been excluded from the political process. If all it takes is one racist to post on a website that “that guy’s a terrorist!” to shut out someone of Jawad’s stature, imagine how less wealthy and less well connected Arab Americans must feel.

There’s your lack of human dignity, Mr. McCain. Rather than take the lead on protecting the human dignity of an important friend in Mr. Jawad, and an important community like Arab Americans, McCain instead chose the low road.

Oh, and McCain failed to offer any specific proposals for helping Michigan’s economy. What a great candidate the Republicans found for filling George W. Bush’s shoes!