Everyone has a list of things they'd like to see in a president. There's the usual: honesty, charisma, "gravitas," good looks, moral grounding, faith. If you're a Democrat, you tend to tack on other considerations: intelligence, knows how to write prose, has read at least 5 books within the last 5 years without any prodding from Karl Rove, has an American passport and has used said passport to travel to a foreign country (Canada doesn't count), and doesn't hate gay people and/or want to throw them off cliffs.

Well, I'm going to add another qualification for 2008 and I think it may actually be among the most important: understands Islam and Muslims. And you get extra points for actually having lived in a Muslim country. If you've studied at a madrasa, even better. Take a look at this clip from 2002 where Obama explains his opposition to the Iraq war. I don't want to set the bar too low, but he clearly grasps the difference between Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds and understands that a war could splinter the country into different ethno-religious factions.

This, for me, is why Barack Obama is such an attractive candidate. He's the only candidate who has any "natural" understanding of the region. He should hype this part of his resume and say it straight-up: "we're fighting a war on terror, one that is taking place mostly in the Muslim world. We're fighting a long and difficult struggle against the forces of Islamic extremism. At the same time, we're trying to convince 1.4 billion Muslims that we're not out to get them. We need a president who understands this region of the world and who is familiar with the aspirations, fears, and sensibilities of our Muslim friends abroad. I am that person. If you grant me your support, I will restore our moral leadership in the eyes of the very people who have come to distrust us most. I will reach out to the Muslim world like no president before me, and I will begin to rebuild the bridges that my predecessor burned."